Deathsong
by LoquaciousQuark
Summary: Post-series. An accident has unexpected ramifications, and Ichigo suddenly faces a new life and a new threat in Soul Society. Living is never as simple as it seems. IchiRuki, complete.
1. Mortal Coil Overture

**AN: **This story is canon-compliant up through chapter 405. This means no tiny!Zangetsu, no redeemed!Gin, and absolutely no Most-Beautiful-Butterfly!Aizen. All further extrapolations are my own.

My thanks first go to Jade for betaing, for her righteous fury over my weakness for adverbs, and for being so patient as I agonized over tenses. Thanks for being gentle with my drabble-writer's rough transition into chaptered fic.

Secondly, I would like to thank my mother for her help with several key plot points. This fanfic would not exist as it is without her input.

Finally, I have done simple little sketches that accompany each chapter. You can see them at my fic comm on Livejournal, which allows image embedding, here: lovelosshope-dot-livejournal-dot-com/12333-dot-html.

**Soundtrack: **I have created a playlist of the songs I listened to while writing this. If you're interested, you can go to playlist-dot-com/playlist/19515627275. The song used for this chapter is Colossal by Wolfmother.

I hope you enjoy!

* * *

**Deathsong**

**Chapter One**

Mortal Coil Overture

_(con brio)_

* * *

On the morning of his eighteenth birthday, almost two years after slaying the traitor Aizen and saving Soul Society, substitute shinigami Kurosaki Ichigo steps off the curb into the street and is immediately hit by a bus.

"Ow," he says, and sits up.

It takes him a moment to compose himself—Ichigo knows from extensive personal experience that collisions with masses of moving metal are never easily dismissed, and his first instinct is to hit back, and harder. He braces his elbows on his knees as the adrenaline wears off, counting to eight as the cedar smell of the trees that line the two-lane road seeps in to calm him down. After another eight-count, he is steady enough to clamber to his feet with relative ease, and, rolling his shoulders back to loosen the last lingering tightness in his chest, Ichigo squints against the brightness of the July sun and surveys his wreckage.

His bag has split open from the impact, and the brightly-colored, newly-purchased textbooks he'd stowed inside have scattered themselves across the pavement in an expensive, literary blast radius like so many bodies, the pages of his thick medical dictionary flipping in the breeze between "heart" and "hemorrhoids." Just beyond the shredded tatters of his physiology textbook, the bus has stopped against the curb, exhaust still puttering into the clear summer air. For a split-second, Ichigo is vaguely proud of the sizable dent in its front fender, but the distractions of common sense eventually remind him that he is still standing in the middle of the street, and more importantly, the books he has just bankrupted himself purchasing are scattered in the same place. He scoops up the three nearest from the asphalt and is just bending to collect the fourth when he hears voices from the direction of the bus, and he turns to see the bus driver, a woman in her late thirties with her dark hair knotted in a neat bun at the base of her neck, emerge from the side of the vehicle, white-faced and shaking.

"Oh, hey—" Ichigo starts, and the woman leans hard on the side of the bus. Ichigo feels a niggling of worry that tugs him a few steps in her direction—she looks like she's about to fall over from shock, after all—but when a concerned-looking man pokes his head out and puts his hand on her shoulder, Ichigo figures she's taken care of for the moment and turns on his heel. He plucks the remains of his bag from where it lays next to his body and thumbs through the gray canvas until he finds an intact pocket, which he then stuffs his books into. And then his hand freezes as a thought occurs to him, his fingers just brushing the books' covers, and Ichigo turns his head to look.

At his body.

"Oh, _shit_," he says. His bag thumps to the ground beside him, his knees following of their own volition a moment after. His body is there, _right there, _lying face up on the road, with one arm clearly dislocated and a spattering of blood on his shirt where his hands had skidded across the pavement. He looks down at his palms—at least, the ones he immediately controls—but they seem to be in perfectly normal unshredded shape—and then he sees it, dead center in the middle of his chest—_both _his chests, sprouting from his red t-shirt like it's at home there.

It is a smooth silver plate, resting just right of his heart, with an empty ring jutting to hold the Chain of Fate he ought to have, and doesn't. Ichigo sits back on his heels and hooks his thumb through the empty ring, suddenly aware of its faint humming vibrating against his teeth. "I'm dead," he says, and the sound of his own voice startles him.

"How astute," says a cool, dry voice behind him, and Ichigo nearly breaks his back trying to spin against asphalt. "Kurosaki," says Ishida Uryuu, glasses gleaming as he pushes them back to the bridge of his nose. He is wearing a short-sleeved white button-up, dark pants, and an expression of long-suffering toleration, and all three fit impeccably.

Ichigo chokes. "Bastard! Sneaking up on me—"

"Hardly," Ishida says, bending over him to peer at Ichigo's body. "I simply thought that it would be better to keep your body away from 'professional' hands if I could help it. Unless you'd prefer surgery over Inoue-san's help, of course," he adds mildly. "You've been known to do idiotic things before."

"_Damn_, you are such a— wait. Why _are _you here? Were you on the bus?"

"I was attempting to attend a sale at the Sunflower Tailor, but seeing as you are so determined to prevent me—"

"Oh, like I was _asking_ for this, just came out of _nowhere_—"

"Really, Kurosaki, if you were so opposed to my hobbies you could have said something—"

"Would you just _shut up _and _help_ _me?_"

Ishida snorts, but he gingerly kneels next to him. Over his shoulder, Ichigo can see the passengers trickling off the bus, most of them with mobile phones pressed to their ears. Someone has handed the bus driver a bottle of water which she clutches in visibly trembling hands; she is so pale that her brown eyes look black against her skin. He knows she can't see him, but the wide-eyed stare she's giving his body puts her almost in direct eyeline with him, and with a little movement of his head he can imagine she's looking straight into his eyes. And that's when he realizes Ishida is talking to him—_has_ been talking to him, and Ichigo jerks his attention back to the conversation. "Uh, what?"

Ishida shoots him his standard look of pity and muted disdain. "I said, Kurosaki, that your body isn't dead."

"What?"

With just the tiniest, disappointed sigh, Ishida gestures at Ichigo's body. "Unless you're fragile enough to be killed by a dislocated shoulder and a few cracked ribs, your body's still alive." He sees Ichigo's look of shock and an even larger sigh escapes him. "You didn't even check?"

"Shut up," Ichigo says automatically, already leaning forward to press his hand against his body's shoulder, and he can't quite keep his stomach from flipping when his forefinger sinks almost an inch into the skin. But it's thick, like pushing through mud, and no matter where he presses, he can't get more than a knuckle deep; in addition, the faintly metallic buzzing of the plate on his chest grows worse when he tries, like it's reaching inside his head to rattle his teeth out. He's to the point of punching his own body out, certain the thing is mocking him with its stubborn solidity, when the quiet hiss of air through Ishida's teeth sends up a warning, and Ichigo glances up just in time to see the bus driver approach on shaky legs, gripping her water bottle like a lifeline.

"Is he—" she starts, but her voice seems to fail her, and she licks her lips to try again. "Is he—alive?"

Ishida doesn't even spare him a glance. "He is," he says, and the woman sags in relief.

"Thank God. I thought—" She puts the water bottle to her flushing cheeks. "Is there anything I can do to help, Doctor?"

Ichigo leans back on his hands. "Doctor? Since when?"

Ishida coughs into his fist. "Ah, thank you, but I don't think so. The injuries don't look too severe, and until we know if there's a spinal injury he shouldn't be moved. Although I can't speak much for the man's intelligence, seeing as he walked into oncoming traffic—"

"Bastard."

"—I'll see he gets taken care of."

Strands of dark hair have fallen out of her bun, and the bus driver tucks them behind her ears with steadier fingers as she crouches next to Ichigo's body. "The poor thing," she says with real guilt, and Ichigo chokes when she actually brushes his hair away from the gouges on his forehead. "He just stepped right off, right into the road—didn't even look, you know. Just walked right into the street, and then there were books flying everywhere and it all—it all happened so fast." Her voice tightens and she swallows, hard, and Ichigo's indignation overwhelms his sympathy when she pats his body on the hand.

"Ishida. She's _touching _me."

"Anyway," she says, collecting herself, "the passengers have already called emergency services. The ambulance should get here any minute."

"Oh, shit," says Ichigo, and the sudden twitch of Ishida's fingers tells him he's realized their problem as well. They can't get his body away with her sitting there, not without raising questions—but letting the local hospital take control is a complication they can't afford. Worse, she seems to be settling in, still faintly sniffling as she pats her hair back into the bun and straightens her disheveled uniform. "Ishida," Ichigo says with some urgency, "you have to get her out of here—we need a distraction."

Ishida gives the woman a polite smile and cuts his eyes very deliberately at Ichigo.

"Oh please, what do you want me to do, just walk out with it? I'm not exactly corporeal right now—it's not like Zangetsu's leaping out—leaping out to…" A thought strikes him, and Ichigo trails off in sudden, real alarm. He turns his gaze inward, fearing his sword will be gone like his shihakusho, but to his immense relief, the old man is still there. Deeper than usual, and feeling almost fuzzy around the edges, but _there._ He is just pulling back into the real world when a foreboding thought strikes him—but he has no time to dive deeper into the corners of his soul, because someone else is approaching them, and Ichigo is beginning to think that he may just have to take his body and run if he becomes any more popular.

The approaching man gestures at the bus driver as he draws near. "One of the other passengers just got off the phone with the police," he calls, and the bus driver rises to her feet. "They said they'd need to speak with you when they got here, you know, take a statement and go through the accident with you."

"Of course," the woman says, nodding, and then seems to think of something. She pulls a scrap of paper from her pocket and scribbles quickly, then hands it to Ishida. "Here, this is my phone number. Please, can you let me know how he does?"

Ishida hesitates, just for a moment, and ignoring Ichigo's _let's-hurry-it-along-shall-we _gestures, takes the folded paper with a thin smile. "Of course, Miss…?"

She looks surprised and then embarrassed. "Oh—I'm so sorry. It's Wakahisa. Wakahisa Kazuko."

"Wakahisa-san. I'll let you know."

"Thank you so much, and…please, apologize to him for me." She turns, then, and with a small smile, walks back towards the bus and the waiting crowd, and in the distance, Ichigo hears the first sirens of approaching ambulances.

"Ishida, we are out of time, you need to get me out of here now—"

"Your body's dead weight, Kurosaki, it's not like I can just stagger out of here with you on my back before the ambulances arrive, we'd need Sado-kun for that—"

"Oh come on, can't you make some kind of floating Quincy shield you can put it on?"

"And where would you like me to pull the reishi from? The passengers?"

"Well, hurry up and come up with something, you're the one talking to thin air—"

Ishida looks irritated enough to hit him, but his attention is suddenly pulled up behind Ichigo; the clack of wooden clogs against pavement sounds just behind him, and a smooth voice Ichigo knows too well enters the conversation. "My, my, what _have_ we gotten ourselves into, gentlemen?"

"Urahara-san," says Ichigo in mingled relief and surprise as he turns. "When did you get here?"

Instead of answering, the shifty shopkeeper smiles, and all of Ichigo's relief drains away, leaving him with only surprise and vague unease.

"My dear Kurosaki-san," Urahara says, making his way around Ichigo and delicately placing the tip of his cane squarely between Ichigo's body's eyes, "you seem to be absolutely beside yourself today."

Ichigo flings caution to the wind; the sirens are getting closer, and he's never had time for caution, anyway. "Urahara-san, I need your help."

Urahara looks at him for a long moment, then pushes the tip of his cane entirely through Ichigo's head until it hits the pavement with a quiet _tack_. "You have no idea," he says, and everything goes black.

* * *

The first thing of which Ichigo becomes aware is that his skinned palms hurt like hell. He's had more serious wounds, of course, but superficial lacerations always seem to take vicious pleasure in overloading his pain centers unlike anything else.

The second thought that lazily drifts through his head is that he's kind of hungry. Thirsty, too, but mostly hungry. He kind of wants an apple. Or an orange. Something somebody could make juice out of.

His third thought is _oh damn, I was dead for twenty minutes today,_ and that is the one that makes him open his eyes and sit up in a hurry.

Right into Orihime's face. "Ah, Kurosaki-kun," she says, although it's somewhat muffled by the fingers covering her abused nose. "Welcome back!"

Ichigo puts a hand to his head, embarrassed, and props himself up on the other elbow. "Ah, sorry, Inoue. You okay?"

She nods cheerfully, and it is then he notices the quiet yellow glow of the Shun Shun Rikka between their faces. That explains why the cracked ribs don't hurt, he realizes, prodding the area in question. And the dislocated shoulder—but no, that's good, too. He opens his hands, palms-up, and watches as even those scratches are healed into smooth, unbroken skin. The glow flickers and fades, and Orihime presses her nose gingerly.

"Thanks," Ichigo says, and then feeling like that somehow isn't enough, adds, "Souten Kisshun's getting really good."

There is a familiar snort behind him. "Ungrateful bastard," someone mutters, and Ichigo turns to see Renji, who is looking bored out of his mind, lounging against the wall beside a patient-looking Chad.

Ichigo blinks. "You guys…what are you doing here?"

"Sado-kun and I were having lunch," Orihime offers. "Talking about things, you know, like the war and a new dish I'm trying with sashimi and hot sauce—" Ichigo glances at Chad, who shrugs, "—and then all of a sudden Ishida-kun came, and he said there'd been an accident and your soul had popped out like a balloon! So of course we rushed right over here, but by the time we'd come you were already back in your body and just a little scraped up, so I used Souten Kisshun and then Renji-kun showed up and said 'I heard that idiot got killed and I wasn't even here to see it.' And then Ishida-kun said he had to get zippers before the store closed and he left, but the rest of us waited and then you woke up!"

Ichigo glances over at Renji, irked. "So what, you just came to pay your respects?"

Renji cocks an eyebrow. "You serious?" He rolls his eyes, then speaks with an exaggerated slowness. "You might not have noticed, but I am a _shinigami_. When people die," and he mimes with his fingers someone walking and then falling over dead, "we come from Soul Society, where the doors open _whoosh—"_

"You are such an _ass—"_

"Don't blame me, fuckface, you're the one asking why I'm here—"

"I thought that's why they assigned Afro-san to this district!"

"Not when it's a high-profile case like yours! Not like you could ever do anything _normal_—"

He hears pounding feet on the mats outside, and then the screen slides open with a bang—"Ichigo!"

"Shit, is that—Rukia? Oh my _God_ whatis this, a _party—"_

"You don't look dead to me at all. Urahara, I thought you said—"

"Kurosaki-kun, _please_ don't! The wounds will open up again!"

And then, yet another voice at the door: "Inoue-san, I got the zippers you needed—Kuchiki-san? Abarai-kun?"

"Hey, Quincy—" Renji starts, but he doesn't get any further, because in the midst of the chaos of six people trying to speak over each other comes the sound of a sharp explosion, and in the shocked silence that follows, all eyes shoot to Urahara and the smoking, kidou-induced hole in the wooden doorframe beside him.

"Now then," he says pleasantly, "if you'll follow me?" He strides out the door and down the hallway, but when no one moves, he pokes his head back into view. "I have tea," he offers, and this time, when he turns and sweeps down the hall, the stunned six of them follow.

* * *

Moments later, they are all seated around a low table, steaming tea in porcelain cups before them. The afternoon sun streams in through the window, gleaming off the ceramic, and in the moment, looking around the table at his friends, Ichigo suddenly realizes that this is the first time they've been together since the war. And then another thought strikes him, and he doesn't even know he's said it aloud until Rukia glances at him.

"A funeral?"

Ichigo shrugs uncomfortably, aware that everyone's looking at him like an exhibit on display. "I just meant it feels like one, you know—you and Renji coming from Soul Society, and Chad and Inoue and Ishida…like it's a reading of the last will and testament or something."

"You _did _die today," Renji points out.

"Well, yeah," Ichigo says, looking at Urahara. "But it was just a fluke."

Urahara steeples his fingers in front of him, and the bottom of Ichigo's stomach drops out. "You're a very peculiar soul, Kurosaki-san. Shinigami have given their powers to another in times of emergency before Kuchiki-san, of course, but only twice before have those powers been given to a human. And never," he adds, "have the humans involved had your natural talent."

"More proof that you're a total freak."

"Shut up, Renji."

"I am partly to blame for the situation," Urahara continues, ignoring the interruption. "I cut your Chain of Fate very soon after our dear friend Kuchiki-san was returned to Soul Society. Possibly too soon. Your growth rate was already far higher than any human's ought to be, and my treatment accelerated it even further—which was _necessary_, I remind you, but apparently seems to have had the small and unfortunate side effect of making your soul a little too big for your human body."

"Too big for my human body."

"Think of the soul as a gas and the body as the container that holds it. In a shinigami, the container can flex and grow as the soul does, allowing for potentially unlimited spiritual growth. But a human is a living being with a fixed body; where normal humans never even come close to approaching their limits, you, Kurosaki-san, and maybe eventually your friends, are astonishing exceptions. The pressure inside of you has been building up and building up, and until today, your body was strong enough to hold it. But add in the accident today, that little physical disturbance—what would in anyone else be perfectly harmless, spiritually speaking—and your soul was able to escape."

Ichigo suddenly finds it very hard to swallow.

"If I am right—and I believe I am—these occurrences of popping out of his living body will become more and more frequent, and each time it will be harder to force the soul to return. Today it was only difficult to push through; eventually, perhaps within a few weeks, perhaps a few months…" Urahara makes an expansive gesture, "it will be impossible. The soul will be trapped outside the body."

"What are you saying, Urahara?" asks Rukia, and her voice is low and angry.

"I am saying," Urahara says, with no trace of a smile on his face, "that Kurosaki-san is dying."

Silence falls in the room, the only motion for several seconds the dust flickering light in the shafts of sunlight still spilling through the windows. They're all looking at Ichigo, and he suddenly wants desperately to be somewhere else, anywhere away from the surprise and the pity in their eyes, and he drops his own to stare at his teacup. They all seem to be waiting on him to say something, but his head has gone white-blank, so instead he counts the ripples in his tea and wonders how many heartbeats he has left.

"Are you absolutely certain?" says Ishida, and the sound of his voice breaks the silence in half. Orihime sniffles audibly and next to Ichigo, Rukia lets out a soft breath he hadn't even been aware she was holding, but he can't look up to meet her eyes; he's sure they hold the same look as everyone else's, and he can't—he _can't _handle pity right now.

Urahara answers in the affirmative, as Ichigo had known he would, and then there is a rattling noise that startles him, and he looks across the table to see Urahara holding a small envelope and a plastic bottle of blue pills, both of which he passes to Ichigo. "This is a medicine I developed for treatment of this phenomenon—specifically, for you. It's similar to the gikongan in that it binds a soul to an empty body, but it's attuned to you rather than an artificial soul." He pauses, and even in the shadows cast by the hat Ichigo can see that his eyes are tired. "I had hoped to use it as a permanent fix, but for whatever reason, your dissociation advanced too rapidly. Those pills can only prolong your life. They can't save it." He hesitates, again, and then almost too quietly for Ichigo to hear, says, "I'm sorry, Kurosaki-san."

Ichigo stands up abruptly. "Good thing I hadn't started studying for the medical exams," he says, because he has to say something or be flattened by the silence. Renji speaks to him, and he says something back, but he isn't paying attention at all; his eyes are looking inwards at his overflowing traitorous soul, the stupid power he'd begged Rukia for so long ago billowing out like ink over all his carefully-laid plans. "Thank you for the medicine, Urahara-san," he says, tucking it into his pocket, and then he turns and strides out the door, not bothering to respond to the voices calling out behind him. He knows in the back of his mind that he is being a self-centered jerk, knows that people die all the time and he isn't any different from them, that walking away from his friends like this is a terribly stupid and selfish thing to do and that they're hurting as much as he is—but the other, more insistent part of his mind is wondering when, exactly, fate intends to give him a vacation from life-changing meetings and other worlds' wars and the capricious nature of his own soul, and when fate remains silent, he breaks into a run.

Twenty minutes have passed before he slows. His feet have led him to a wide walking path near the small local park, and he follows it until he comes to the place where it arches over the river. He makes it halfway across before he stops, wandering over to the chest-high railing and gripping the bars, leaning over them to look at the gleaming water below. The seconds rush by with the river; he doesn't know how long he stands there, but it's long enough that by the time he notices Rukia standing next to him, his knuckles are aching against the metal rail.

"Drowning is an excessively unpleasant way to die," she begins conversationally, standing on tiptoe to look over the railing. "But I suppose if you are that committed, I could knock you unconscious first."

"Idiot. I wasn't going to drown myself."

"Not in anything but self-pity."

His head whips around, but she is still looking at the water. She is quiet for a long moment as if waiting for him to speak, the only sounds the lapping of the ripples below and the occasional car in the distance.

"You stopped coming," he says without meaning to, but she doesn't move.

"So did you."

"I was busy."

"And so was I."

Ichigo looks back at the river, his jaw set mulishly. "I had classes and cram school—exams for medical schools all over the country. Worked at Dad's clinic, too, to pay for the books I bought this morning that I'll never use."

"And I had squads of new recruits, green and untried, looking to me to protect them against Hollows and their own naïveté. We _both _had responsibilities, Ichigo, and blaming each other for them is unkind to us both."

"We all agreed to get together," he says. "Once a month, the six of us. But we couldn't even make it once—not _once, _Rukia. Things started cropping up at the last minute. Chad's band would have a gig, or you or Renji would be off on a mission—and then Inoue and Ishida went off to Chiba Medical, and after _that _we were lucky to get two of us in the same place, much less us all." He swivels on the spot so his back is to the rail. "Do you realize that this is the first time we've even seen each other in over eight months? It took someone fucking _dying _to get us in the same place again."

She is very quiet, and then at last: "You are angry about more than this," she says, as if she speaks to the river, and then her eyes flick up to meet his. "You are angry at yourself, and at me."

He doesn't say anything, but even after their months apart, Rukia is still able to read his silences. "You are afraid," she says, and his fingers twitch against his sides.

"Of death?"

"No."

"Of dying, then."

Ichigo says nothing.

"You've faced dying before without fear."

Ichigo snorts bitterly. "I didn't know I'd be losing to my own soul then."

"Don't be childish," she snaps. "I know exactly how much you have sacrificed for me—for us. And I thought, just as you did, that you were finally going to be able to live like a human ought to, to go to that ridiculous school and become a doctor. But Ichigo," and her voice is hard, "No matter how much I wish to, I _cannot_ change this. And you cannot change it either. And to shut your friends out, to whine and childishly run away as if closing your eyes and pretending would change anything—this would be intolerable for everyone you care about."

He says nothing—he knows she's right, but he is still afraid and so_ angry _he can't think straight, can't come up with a thought besides _this is not fair._

"Ichigo," Rukia says again, but this time it is gentler, and when Ichigo looks at her she turns her whole body to face him. "Ichigo, you must notlet yourself grow bitter over this. It will eat you from the inside out, more than your Hollow ever could. You must control it, for your own sake, and for the sake of the friends who love you. Do you understand?"

Ichigo takes a measured breath, and then he meets her eyes, tinged with a sorrow without pity, and he wonders if her resolve can seep into him. _I understand_, he wants to say, and maybe _I'm sorry_, but his voice seems to be entirely gone, so instead he turns until his elbow bumps hers and rests his arms on the railing in front of him, his awkward hands dangling over the water.

Rukia places her hands on the rail beside his, one loosely fisted around the other; even after all this time, Ichigo is surprised by how his hands dwarf hers. He studies her hands, fine-boned and strong, and then he looks back up to Karakura, and when the river below rushes to amber in the light of the setting sun, he breathes out his bitterness with it.


	2. Halcyon Days: Kurosaki Remix

**AN: **Yes, the story is in present tense. It's on purpose, I promise.

The soundtrack for this chapter (link available on my profile) is The Fight by The Classic Crime.

* * *

**Chapter Two**

Halcyon Days (Kurosaki Remix)

_(con intensita)

* * *

_

Two weeks after the meeting with Urahara, Ichigo sits down with his father to have an important and long-overdue conversation.

Of course, he first has to surprise, overpower, and physically restrain him in the kitchen chair; in retrospect, Ichigo thinks he ought to have realized that opening any conversation with his father with "I need to tell you something" would have resulted in the beardo immediately going for the video camera to preserve that most time-honored tradition, the father-son chat.

"Ichi_go-o_," says his father, obviously itching to make another attempt at the camera, "if I don't record it Masaki will never forgive me and then I won't get _any_ kisses in heaven—"

"Like you would anyway," Ichigo says, dropping into the chair across from his father. "I'm trying to tell you something serious!"

Isshin bursts into noisy tears and reaches for the poster on the wall. "Masaki! Our idiot son has finally come to his senses and wants to confide in me, the manly influence of his life—"

"Would you shut _up_, you old beardo?"

Isshin gazes nobly at an invisible horizon. "—but do not worry, I will still love him like one of my own—"

"I'm trying to tell you that I'm _dying_, you insane old coot," Ichigo snaps, and his soul pops out as smoothly as if it had been oiled. His body topples forward until his forehead comes down on the table with a thud, and Ichigo sighs. "Ah, dammit."

"Idiot son!" Isshin cries, and he leaps out of his chair and to Ichigo's side, wrapping his arms around the necks of both Ichigo's body and soul. "Never fear! I, your father, will give you mouth-to-mouth—mouth-to-mouths—"

"Not necessary," Ichigo says, peeling his father off. "I can get back in on my own, Urahara gave me a pill—do you _mind_?"

Isshin hooks his finger into the empty ring of Ichigo's Chain of Fate and tugs it this way and that, heedless of the body being jerked along with it. "Fascinating," he says, attention entirely focused on the ring. "Kisuke said this was probably a side effect of the Vizard abilities. Personally," he adds out of the corner of his mouth, "I think Kisuke could've used some of the upper-level bakudou and negated some of the effects of the transformation—but I suppose that's why he was the one to turn my son into a half-human with a Hollow trying to devour his soul, not me."

"Would you get your damn finger out of my—ring-thing?" Ichigo says, prying at the offending digit with both hands. It feels _weird_, like pins and needles prickling up his chest—not painful, exactly, but certainly uncomfortable, and when he finally frees himself from his father the relief is immediate. He skirts the table warily while his father sobs noble tears against Masaki's poster. After a few moments, Isshin seems content to let his tears stop, and instead steps back just to look at the poster, and Ichigo drops into Karin's chair. "So," he says, "you already talked with Urahara-san?"

His body's left arm quietly slides off the table, the rest of him seeming likely to follow; Isshin turns and takes his own seat across from Ichigo as if his son's body lolling lifelessly at dinner is a regular occurrence. "Kisuke does like to keep me updated when my children come to him for help," he says. "Especially when one of them seems fond of putting himself in mortal danger without a word to his doting father."

Ichigo drums his fingers on the table, remembering another conversation they had once in another battle. "I think," he says slowly, "that we both had our secrets."

The past slips down heavily between them, and then Isshin leans back in his chair. "And reasons enough for them. The important thing is what's happening now. And the question is—"

Ichigo braces himself.

"—who you'll be leaving your substitute shinigami badge to. I nominate myself."

Ichigo's body completes its journey off the table with a thump.

"You damn mercenary old man!"

"You can't use it in Soul Society! You mother would be ashamed if it went to waste—don't give me that look! _Father's Spinning Insubordinate Son Kiiiiiiick—_"

"Son of a _bitch—_that won't work on me, old man—"

"I won't cry at your funeral!"

"I don't want you to come!"

Then, for several minutes, there is only the sound of scuffling and limbs striking furniture. Eventually, they come to rest, inexplicably snared by one of the kitchen table legs, both pinned helplessly and painfully by the other. When they've been still enough that Ichigo grows confident there will be no further attacks, he relaxes his hold on his father's ankles, although he's unable to move much due to the elbow in his kidney. The clock is ticking quietly in the other room, and in the silence he finds himself counting down his seconds.

"Ichigo," comes his father's voice from somewhere behind his left knee, "it won't be so bad."

He studies his body's foot, which has somehow mixed itself up in the melee and protrudes from the crook of his elbow. "How do you know?" he asks, and his voice is quieter than he'd meant it.

"Well," his father says, and he feels rather than sees the shrug, "it's not like Soul Society's that bad a place. The Academy will be a breeze if you're any son of mine—which, by the way, you might want to steer clear of mentioning there, don't need you spoiling my good name—and think about it: you can still come visit your friends. It's like a boarding school, except I don't have to pay through the nose for my idiot son to skip class and ogle beautiful coeds—_ow!_"

"Dumbass." But Ichigo's mind is moving in a whole new direction. He hasn't even considered the Shinigami Academy. Is he supposed to attend classes and wear that dumb blue cadet's uniform? What if he has to join a division as an unseated recruit? Oh, _man,_ Renji is never gonna let him hear the end of this—

"But most importantly, you'll be able to keep a close eye on my third daughter, Rukia-cha-an!"

"I am _never_ visiting you."

* * *

"Ah, dammit…" Ichigo huffs, sweating heavily. He's managed to get most of the way back into his body thanks to the pills Urahara has given him—but he is having serious difficulties with his right arm. The limb from the shoulder down refuses to sync up, giving him one normal left arm, two jerking, twitching right ones, and the beginnings of a serious headache behind his eyes.

Isshin, sporting an ostentatious and entirely unnecessary bandage around his head, offers observations from the table. "You look like a constipated squid."

"Shut up," Ichigo says, and flops into a chair. He closes his eyes, trying to focus on the instructions Urahara has given him along with the pill that are supposed to make this whole process easier. _Stay calm,_ that's the first one; it's supposedly easier for the capsule to do its job without mental interference. Ichigo cracks one eye and glances at his father, who has crossed his eyes and is making fish lips in his son's direction. Forget that, then, on to number two: _see the joining in your mind. _He lets his eyes fall closed again and tries to picture the limbs in his mind. Like two copies of the same image sliding over each other until they come into focus, the muscles aligning with each other, the nerves linking up all the way down to his fingertips…

He opens his eyes just in time to see his thumb slowly disappear into itself, the sync finally complete. Ichigo exhales in relief and sags in his chair, using that same thumb to wipe a bead of sweat from his eyelid. "That was close."

This is the fourth time in the two weeks since he's seen Urahara that his soul has expelled itself, and the stimulus is getting smaller each time—the first time, he'd been hit by a bus; this time, he'd simply been irritated—and then Ichigo finds himself getting irked again by the mere memory, and he has to put it out of his head entirely or risk undoing all his hard work.

He pulls his hand down and studies it. The fingers twitch a little still, and he can almost feel his soul trying to pull back out. Every now and then there are flickers along the edges, like light, and Ichigo knows Urahara is right; it is getting harder and harder to force his way back into his body. It hardens each time, like wet sand slowly baking in the sun, and Ichigo knows that soon it will be as solid as glass and impossible to break through. This might have even been the last time, he suddenly thinks, and Isshin's frown tells him his thoughts have turned the same way.

"It won't be long, anyway," he says, and slowly curls the fingers into a fist.

* * *

Ichigo dies on a Thursday.

Three weeks to the day after he'd first stepped in front of the bus, he is having lunch with Chad and Orihime at an outdoor cafe. It is cool for the middle of summer, and Ichigo finds himself wishing he'd worn long sleeves rather than his t-shirt. Chad, of course, wouldn't notice the temperature in a snowstorm, but Orihime's cardigan keeps slipping off her shoulders as she gestures.

"I'd thought he was Shigeo-kun from the back since it was so dark, but he obviously wasn't since he didn't have any drumsticks—and then he started to get _handsy_, you know, so Tatsuki-chan suggested he go jump in a lake, but I thought it was starting to get too cold for that, so she told him to go somewhere hotter, and by that point Sado-kun had come up to say hello. You know, I think the man must have really liked Sado-kun's band, because he started stammering and looking flustered to be so close to him, and—Kurosaki-kun, I think you're falling out of your body again."

Ichigo blinks and looks down. Indeed, somehow without his noticing, his soul has begun leaking out of his body. His torso has separated down to his waist, and even that is beginning to split as his body begins to slump out of his chair. Chad reaches over and props it back up with one hand, but still, there is something…

The last of his toes separate in his sneakers, and Ichigo suddenly feels a sensation of lightness in his chest under the Chain of Fate's plating that seems different from any previous disembodiment. There is a faint ringing in his ears, and he somehow knows without needing to try that his body will be metal-hard to the touch. Orihime and Chad stare at him, and Ichigo blurts the first thing that came to mind.

"I think I just died," he says.

"Brilliant deduction, Kurosaki," comes a dry voice behind him, and he turns to see Ishida in a tailored grey coat. "I'm glad to see you still insist on making these events all about yourself."

"Well—shit," says Ichigo, bewildered. Ishida slides into the fourth, empty seat and casually appropriates Ichigo's untouched glass of water.

There is a brief moment in which Ichigo isn't sure what to do. Chad and Orihime are looking at him expectantly, Ishida is completely ignoring him, and all he feels is vaguely foolish that he's somehow managed to die without even noticing. Then Orihime, wide-eyed, props her head on her hands. "So Kurosaki-kun, what does it feel like, being completely dead? I was only half-dead before, so I don't think it really counts."

He looks down and raps a fingernail on the silver plate on his chest, resulting in a faint pinging sound that echoes oddly in the tiny courtyard. "Not that different, really," he says awkwardly, stilling the noise with his hand. "Just…lighter. Like I'm not weighed down, or something."

"Ichigo," says Chad, and he glances over. "What do you want to do with your body?"

Oops. Scratching his head with one hand, he muses aloud, "I didn't even think about it. Urahara said it would eventually decay, but in the meantime, I guess I could give it to Kon?" His eyes meet Chad's, and a simultaneous shudder runs through both of them. "No. Not giving it to Kon."

"Donate it to science!" Orihime suggests. "That way, at least some part of you will get to go to medical school!"

"It would at least be an interestingly bizarre specimen for the students."

"Bastard. But it's a good idea, Inoue—I might as well. Besides—"

"_Newly! Dead! Soul!_"

There's a whistling sound, and the four of them look up to see a black shape rapidly descending in their direction. It hits the ground with a noisy crash, barely missing their table, and in the resultant cloud of dust, they can barely make out a figure straightening. A sudden breeze picks up, and Ichigo glimpses the black sleeve of a shihakusho that makes his stomach flip before the dust clears to reveal—

"A_—Afro-san?"_

"Newly dead soul! Do not fear! I have come to bear you away to heaven—that is, Soul Society! There, the torment of this world will cease and—" The shinigami suddenly pauses mid-speech to glare at him, and Ichigo pinches the bridge of his nose, feeling the stirrings of another headache. "Wait a second, I know you! You're that substitute shinigami who was causing all those problems a few years ago!"

"_Causing—_hardly—stop _smirking_, Ishida—"

"Go to heaven, substitute shinigami!" Afro-san says, and suddenly the hilt of his sword is rocketing towards Ichigo's forehead. He jerks back, but the action is wholly unnecessary; Chad has already grabbed the sword hilt just above the guard, stopping it a full hands-length from Ichigo's face.

"We're going to wait for our friends," Chad says peaceably, and Ichigo nods, unsettled. His reaction time is slow, much slower than he'd ever been as a shinigami. Urahara had said it would take some time for his powers to reawaken after dying, but that had been way too close to a successful konso for comfort, and he finds himself almost eager to get to Soul Society just so his power can start returning.

"What friends?" asks Afro-san suspiciously, just as a voice speaks behind him.

"Yo, Ichigo!"

"Yo," he replies, unable to suppress a grin, and as Renji and Rukia step into view through the senkai gate, he finds that the residual awkwardness he had expected has somehow seeped away, and all that is left is a genuine excitement to see his friends again. "I didn't think both of you were going to be able to come."

Rukia stops to brief Afro-san on the situation, but Renji joins them around the table. "We weren't—by the way, I'm stealing this seat. Hey, guys." He unceremoniously deposits Ichigo's body on the ground and plants himself in the now-empty chair, snagging a fry from Chad's plate.

"Geez, watch it—"

"Anyway, it was just going to be Rukia, but I ended up getting special permission at the last second to go. What's up, Quincy? You look like a Hollow ate your arrows."

"Abarai-kun."

"Good to see you too. How's it going, Inoue? Sado?"

Orihime begins talking excitedly as Rukia finishes with Afro-san and approaches. Ichigo glances past her to see the shinigami looking disgruntled. "I hate this town," he says in a carrying mutter just before he turns and speeds off down the road presumably back to his post.

"What'd you say to him?" he asks Rukia as she reaches them.

She looks quietly pleased with herself. "I told him we were taking you to Soul Society ourselves. When he protested, I told him I outranked him and gave him a direct order."

Ichigo snorts and flicks a finger at the new, carved badge on her arm. "You're letting that power go to your head."

"Having my orders followed is a relative novelty. My last student was one of the most obstinate people I ever met."

"Oh, shut up."

"No, Rukia, he's right," says Renji, leaning back in chair to look at her around Ichigo with a wicked gleam in his eye. "Every time I turn around, I'm hearing horror stories of the 13th's vice-captain: making recruits cry, tormenting the cadets at the academy—"

"Oh _don't,_" cries Orihime. "Kuchiki-san, I'm sure you're a very good vice-captain that doesn't make anyone cry."

"Only stubborn rookies who don't follow orders," she responds, her voice dripping with significance, and Ichigo rolls his eyes.

"Oh, _please_. What are you going to do, threaten me with your horrible drawings? Ukitake-san would probably classify that as cruel and unusual punishment—"

"Speaking of," interrupts Renji, "we should probably get this show on the road. The captains're waiting back on the other side to say hello."

_The captains? _wonders Ichigo, but Rukia nods.

"So…time for goodbyes, then." How stupid, he thinks, that after all they'd been through, he could make these last few moments into something so awkward. How do you say goodbye to people who traded saving lives like other people trade baseball cards? He hesitates on even knowing who to start with, but—Ishida is smirking at him again, and as if the last few minutes had never happened, he falls back comfortably into the needling rut of their friendship.

"Well, might as well do the worst first. See you around, Ishida. Good luck with the whole pansy 'sewing doctor' thing."

"Same to you, Kurosaki. At least you had the decency to die first," he responds, but his glasses gleam, and an unspoken challenge passes between them. Ichigo can practically hear the promise of a rematch—maybe verbal, maybe physical, but probably both—in the future.

_Asshole_, he thinks, grinning, and he turns to shake hands with Chad. "Good luck with the band, man. Keep an eye on my sisters, okay? I think Karin's gonna get herself into trouble if she keeps hanging around those kids at Urahara's shop."

Chad nods, grips Ichigo's hand one last time, and then releases it. "Aa. See you, Ichigo."

"Inoue—" he starts, looking over at her, but her eyes are already welling up with tears. "Uh—"

"_Kurosaki_-_kun_!" she wails, and she wraps him in a giant hug, crying into his jacket.

He freezes, then pats her on the back. "Uh, Inoue, I'm sure it'll be fine—"

"Listen, Kurosaki-kun!" she exclaims, backing up a step to hold him at arm's length. Her eyes are bright and determined, and he is suddenly grateful to her. "Be careful drinking the water and don't worry about new friends on the first day of school, okay? Remember, everybody's going to be just as nervous as you are and if you get lonely, just send me or Ishida-kun or Sado-kun a hell butterfly and we'll come right over! And make sure you come visit us a lot!"

_Damn,_ Ichigo thinks fondly. "You got it, Inoue."

She gives him a wobbly smile and backs up next to Ishida, giving Rukia room to step in with her sword drawn. The tip of the hilt is already glowing, and Ichigo feels his heart skip a beat. So this is it.

"Are you ready?" Rukia asks, and he hesitates.

Ichigo looks over her shoulder to where Renji is standing, face serious, but a hint of a grin tugging at his eyes. From there his gaze sweeps to Chad, solid and steady, Orihime, still leaking tears and sniffling, and Ishida, sympathetic as a rock.

Shit. He's going to miss them,he thinks, and the realization almost surprises him. _But,_ he adds to himself, a quiet promise, _I'll be back._ He looks down at Rukia, still standing in front of him, waiting patiently for his answer.

"Yeah. I'm ready."

She smiles, a quiet one, just for him, and sweeps her sword up in a smooth motion until the cool hilt comes to rest on his forehead; there is an immediate tingling in his feet, and he glances down just in time to see them vanish. Point of no return, then, he thinks, and looks back up at the others. Ishida offers him a nod of acknowledgement, and Chad and Orihime raise their hands in a wave—Orihime is _still_ crying, he notes with more affection than exasperation, but he lifts his own hand in return.

"See you on the other side," says Ichigo, and his world dissolves into light.


	3. First Day Blues

**Soundtrack: **_Cemeteries of London _by Coldplay. The link to the playlist is on my profile.

* * *

**Chapter Three**

First Day Blues

_(andante)_

_

* * *

_

Ichigo drifts against stone. There's a breeze blustering through his hair, just cool enough to take off the edge of the sun-baked street beneath his back, and even though he can feel the texture of the cobblestones under his fingers, he feels peculiarly weightless, like he might float away at any moment. Under his back, he can hear feel the rumbling of distant footsteps and conversations; he thinks he should probably move at some point and go find the people the voices belong to, but that would require opening his eyes, so instead he takes advantage of the lazy moment to check on his sword. Sure enough, he can feel the old man lodged safely in his soul, sleeping deeply. Ichigo is unconcerned; he'll wake up when he's ready to—but the something-else that dozes just underneath is still enough to give him pause.

Something drips on his head, accompanied by a high-pitched giggle. "Wake up, Ichy-chan, or I'll drool on you again!"

Ichigo's eyes fly open, and for a moment he thinks he's looking at an eclipse of the sun—and then it resolves itself into the gleaming bald head of Madarame Ikkaku. Beside him, crouched with her head even closer to his, is Kenpachi's kid—Yachiru_,_ he thinks is her name—with a gleeful grin spreading across her face.

Ikkaku slings Hoozukimaru over his shoulders. "I was wondering when you'd bother opening your eyes. Thought I might have to just tell the captains waiting on you to get lost."

"Hey," Ichigo says, and he's surprised by the croakiness of his voice. He bats away a still-giggling Yachiru and stretches stiff arms above his head, then rolls to a sitting position. The girl darts around him in delighted circles, singing, "Ichy-chan, Ichy-chan, Ichy-chan's de-ad—" but he ignores her, shading his eyes with one hand and taking his first look at his new home.

The sky of Soul Society is as burningly blue as he remembers, cloudless and smooth over the slated rooftops of the nearby buildings. He can see the Tower of Penitence and Soukyoko Hill stretching up against the horizon, but distances are tricky in Soul Society and he can't quite tell how far away they are. "How long have I been in—whatever district this is?"

"33rd," Ikkaku says. "North Rukongai. Not bad, ex-substitute. 'Least it's not the worse parts, and that's the important thing. Might not have woken up before somebody got to you."

Ichigo rolls his shoulders forward, feeling the muscles in his back loosening. "Give me a break. I'm not that delicate."

"Neither is Rukongai," Ikkaku says, and he squints up at the sun. "You've been here over an hour, I guess—not like my vice-captain's known for her reliability, and when she dragged me over here giggling about Ichy-chan coming to play with the captain, I figured it was just another game until I saw your lazy ass sprawled in the middle of the street."

"Delicate dead-Ichy-chan!" Yachiru says gleefully, and wraps both arms around Ichigo's neck. "Come play with Ken-chan, dead-Ichy-chan!"

"I'm kinda surprised she didn't take off sooner, considering how you didn't even move when she drooled on you." Ikkaku grins as Ichigo pulls a disgusted face and wipes his forehead on his sleeve. "Anyway, Kuchiki's on her way. Word was out she was looking for you, so I sent off a butterfly a while ago and—well, speakin' of—" He jerks a thumb to his left, and as Ichigo rises to his feet, he sees Rukia approaching at a jog. She raises a hand in acknowledgement, and the two men begin walking in her direction. Yachiru leaps to his shoulders with a joyful war cry and begins pulling at his hair.

"What happened to Renji?" Ichigo asks once they are within speaking distance. Yachiru yanks on his left ear and he brushes at it irritably. "Would you—get—off?"

Yachiru is abruptly plucked from his neck to dangle giggling in the air. "Vice-Captain," says Ikkaku, holding her at eye level, "I heard Kuchiki's brother's been hiding a huge bag of candy in his office at the Sixth."

Yachiru freezes in mid-air, and then leaps from Ikkaku's hand with a drawn-out call of "_Byakushi!"_ In a pink flurry of dust and dirt, she speeds off between the buildings and out of sight.

There is a moment's silence. Rukia's affront is nearly tangible, especially considering Ikkaku's grin, but the matter of the waiting captains seems to win out over her irritation, and she turns to lead them deeper into the heart of the city, towards Seireitei. "Renji received notice of an emergency in the field just as we returned; some of the Sixth's new recruits got in too deep on a routine Hollow mission, so he left to supervise the situation. He asked me to tell you good luck, and to also try very hard to not say anything dumb to the captains, and he would see you tomorrow."

Ichigo rolls his eyes, but he is still abruptly reminded that he is joining a functioning military organization; Hollows still attack, people still die, and his friends have duties to perform. And speaking of duties—"Why do they want to see me, anyway?"

Ikkaku looks at him out of the corner of his eye. "Kuchiki didn't tell you?"

"I didn't have a chance," Rukia says indignantly. "I was going to tell him on the way, but then he was so difficult to find—"

"Your reiatsu's pretty much zero right now," explains Ikkaku. "Standard result of konso—it drains the reiatsu for transfer to Soul Society. Always takes a couple weeks for the spiritual body to start gaining strength again. Which is why," he adds with a malicious smile, hands dangling over Hoozukimaru, "my captain's not already here with bells on."

"And as for the meeting," interrupts Rukia, "I believe the captains have a proposition for you."

"Proposition?"

"You have heard that Hisagi-san has been nominated for captaincy of the Ninth, correct?"

Ichigo nods, remembering Rukia mentioning something to that effect almost a year ago. They duck through an alleyway and emerge into a bustling street, alive with men and women opening storefronts and striking up conversations with their neighbors; Ichigo is momentarily distracted by a man walking by with a flask of water raised to his mouth, but Rukia is still speaking, and he pulls his attention back to the conversation.

"That still leaves the Third and Fifth without a captain. Ukitake-taichou told me that the Central 46 have someone in mind for the Third, but as for the Fifth—well, I heard they first asked Madarame-san—"

"They did, but I'm no fool—"

"—And since he declined, they had to look… elsewhere." Rukia looks at him as if she expects him to understand the implication, but Ichigo's mind is still on the man with the water.

"Uh, sorry, what?"

Ikkaku exhales in a small puff of air and raps the back of Ichigo's head with the end of Hoozukimaru. "They're tapping you for the Fifth's captain, idiot."

Ichigo stops mid-step in the middle of the street, one hand halfway up to the back of his head. "They're _what_?"

Rukia sighs. "Madarame-san," she says reproachfully, and then tugs on Ichigo's elbow to get him walking again. "Come _on_, Ichigo, don't look so shocked. You must have expected something of the kind. Or did you think you would become the only greenhorn using bankai to scrub courtyards?"

"Well, no, I guess—but don't captains have, like, responsibility and shit?"

Ikkaku snorts. "Oh, give me a break. You of all people are gonna be skittish about this?"

"I'm not being skittish! Besides, you didn't take the job either."

Ikkaku sticks his pinky finger in his ear, looking pensive. "Yeah, well," he says at last, "I know where my place in Soul Society is. And let me tell you, it ain't wearin' a white coat and pretending I'm equal to Captain Zaraki." He shrugs. "Maybe one day, I might feel like I could take the job. But right now I'm set where I am, and no wimps at the Central 46 are gonna convince me otherwise."

Ichigo studies the other man, surprised. But before he can say anything, Ikkaku slips Hoozukimaru back down to his side and turns on his heel to head back along the road they've already traveled.

"Anyway, this is far enough for me. I've gotta head back and check on the vice-captain, otherwise the captain'll make me pay for whatever shit she breaks. Besides, last thing I want is to be caught hanging around by the rest of the captains or they'll start askin' me questions again. Later, Ichigo. Kuchiki." He sketches a wave with one hand and sets off, and Ichigo watches him until he turns the corner out of sight.

He puts a hand to his neck. This is happening too quickly—far too quickly. He doesn't have the expertise for this; he's a medical student, not commanding officer material. He's not even really _military _material, not the kind Soul Society wants, and certainly not what the captains should be considering to lead one of their divisions. Then he feels cool fingers on his arm, and he looks down in surprise at Rukia.

She withdraws her hand immediately at the look on his face and an uncomfortable pause slips between them. Ichigo is uneasy and _embarrassed_, and he doesn't know why; he remembers a hundred times she's touched him before, violent or gentle or just to get his attention, but this time—this is the first time her fingers have felt foreign to him.

He wonders if they've lost more than years.

Rukia swallows. "They will not force you to take the position, you know," she says, her voice stilted by the awkwardness that's sprung between them.

Ichigo slides his eyes away, unnerved by his transparency. "It's just—shit, Rukia, I don't know the first thing about running a division. All I've got is a lot of power—and they do remember the first time I came I was invading to rescue _you_, right?"

Unexpectedly, Rukia smiles. It is not an easy smile, but it is genuine, and Ichigo feels a little of his tension slip away. "They have not forgotten," she says. "But Ichigo, they are not foolish people—_most_ of them are not foolish people," she amends, "and if they named you as a candidate, then it is because they believe you are capable of the job."

Ichigo looks intently at her; she holds his gaze without flinching. "Yeah," he finally sighs, not entirely convinced but not uncomforted, either. "I guess I could at least listen to the offer."

"Good," she said, and smiles again.

This time, when she steps forward, he keeps his pace beside her.

* * *

The sun hangs low in the sky before Rukia receives word that Ichigo's meeting has ended. She presses the seal of the Thirteenth onto the last page of her day's reports and shoves the stack to a corner of her desk to be filed before rising to leave, hesitating only a moment before standing; she has not forgotten their earlier awkwardness, but she is more eager to hear what the captains have said. She pauses to give Kiyone a hasty goodnight, and then she makes her way through the division's offices and out onto the narrow roads of Seireitei. She doesn't hurry, but she still makes good time, arriving at the stately old building just as Ichigo emerges and slings closed the heavy wooden door behind him.

He looks exhausted, and he looks _young. _

Rukia is shaken by the thought. She knows, of course, that he is barely eighteen—at least, she keeps the knowledge somewhere in the back of her mind—but he has been shouldering a centuries-old responsibility since the day they met, and he has managed his power so well for so long that she has allowed herself to forget his age, to forget that he is only a handful of years out of childhood until she sees him here with his hair muted in the dimming daylight, the shadows pressing down until his shoulders seem to slump under their weight._ Maybe all of this in one day was too much,_ she thinks guiltily, but Ichigo has already spotted her, and she smiles to cover her discomfort.

"How did it go?" she asks, partly out of curiosity and partly to distract herself from her worry.

Ichigo scrubs a hand over his face and falls into step with her as she turns back towards the city proper. "It went okay, I guess," he says at last, and his voice is as tired as his eyes. "You were right about the captaincy."

Then he falls silent, and Rukia does not press him. Their footsteps echo off the stones of the emptying street as vendors fold up their stands and move their merchandise inside; the sun is setting at an angle behind them, and Rukia momentarily amuses herself with the fact that their shadows stretch out to nearly the same length. Then she sees the shadow of his head turn as he looks at her—stares, really, and her feet slow of their own accord.

"Rukia," he says, and there is something in his voice that makes her head snap around, "I think I'm going to take it."

"I am glad to hear it," she replies, managing to keep all but the slightest waver out of her voice. Ichigo's eyes are distant, but there is a confidence in his face and voice that she hasn't seen since the day he'd learned he was dying. That day, in their conversation on the bridge, there had been a fear in him she'd never seen before, a fear and despair at his own powerlessness that made her fear for him in turn—but it is gone, gloriously _gone_, and the Ichigo she knows best, the one who races ahead without wavering, the one she refuses to admit she has missed, has returned in full force. She wants to cry—she is giddy with relief.

Still, Ichigo must have heard her unsteadiness. "Hey, you okay?"

She is wonderful. "I was merely pitying your future subordinates," she says loftily, though her eyes are warm. "Young and terrified, the captain permanently scowling at them—"

"I don't _scowl—_"

"Always walking around in full shikai—'how sad,' they'll say behind your back, 'unable to even seal his sword—'"

"Oh come on, that's _Zangetsu's_ choice—"

"And in the end they'll say, 'oh, if we had only gone with the magnificent Kuchiki Rukia!'"

Ichigo chokes. "Bitch."

"Fool."

"Harpy."

"Moron."

"Intolerable midget."

Rukia laughs. This is good, this is _comfortable_; she knows this Ichigo. He cuffs her shoulder with only an instant's hesitation, but he is smiling, and Rukia is pleased to note that a good deal of the tension has lifted off his shoulders.

The final edge of the sun slips below the horizon, casting the street into the cool blue of twilight. A narrow avenue branches off the main road leading into the district's outskirts and the two turn down it in companionable quiet.

"So," says Rukia eventually, "when will you assume command?"

Ichigo stretches his arms above his head, then lets them fall to swing loosely by his side. "Dunno. Not for a while. They said they wanted me to take some classes at the Academy first, get a feel for how things work from the bottom up."

Rukia shoots him a sidelong look. "Do you know which classes?"

Ichigo shrugs. "They didn't say. Probably controlling my reiatsu, and at least some kidou, too, seeing as mine completely sucks."

"I was near the top of my class in kidou before nii-sama adopted me. I would be happy to tutor you."

"That'd be great, actually—why the hell are you smiling like that?"

"I am merely planning the lessons. I hope your essay skills haven't rusted."

"Oh come on, I don't even have a place to live yet and you're already assigning me homework—"

"I think twenty pages on the four categories of kidou will do nicely to start, my dear pupil."

"Not a chance in _hell_, Rukia, and if you think—wait. Where are we? This is your brother's place, isn't it?"

Indeed, without Ichigo noticing, the narrow avenue has broadened into a wide lane that wound gracefully between small copses of cherry trees. Ahead lies a wooden bridge spanning a small creek and just beyond that, the graceful, closed gates of the Kuchiki manor politely inform the sneaker-clad commoner that he is underdressed for the occasion.

The playful moment dissolves and Rukia hesitates, the awkwardness of their years apart suddenly resurfacing between them. "Well—you are new to Soul Society, and I thought that since you will have nowhere to sleep for a few days until you take your position as Captain—or I suppose, now, until you join the Academy—that you might wish to take one of our spare rooms in the meantime. Just—until you get one of your own."

Ichigo sticks his thumbs in his pockets. "Kuchiki with a heart of gold. Are you sure Byakuya is okay sharing a roof with the unwashed masses?"

"Fool. Nii-sama generously gave his permission when I asked." Of course, Rukia remembers with a wince, "gave his permission" had been more like "did not immediately say no"; still, all the same, the offer has been made. "But," she adds uncomfortably as a new thought strikes her, "if you had meant to stay elsewhere…"

"Huh? Oh," says Ichigo, and Rukia is gratified to see him become flustered in turn, "no. I mean, Renji's staying in the division barracks right now with those injured kids, and it's not like I'd feel comfortable imposing on anybody else. So, uh, yeah, that'd be great. And—thanks. To Byakuya too, I guess. "

"You may grovel later."

"Bitch."

* * *

His room is clean and bare save a futon rolled in one corner, a light blanket and a simple sleeping yukata folded neatly next to it. He changes swiftly, kicking the futon open and into position as he does so, and flops down without ceremony.

He is exhausted. Bone-tired, as he hasn't been since the war, even though he's done nothing more strenuous that day than have a long conversation with old friends. _Well_, _and died,_ he appends absently, but he figures that hardly counts. But still, he's survived the day; even better, he has concrete plans for his future that don't involve killing a single person. Progress, where Soul Society is concerned.

Cautiously optimistic, Ichigo closes his eyes and allows himself, finally, to rest.

* * *

He dreams only once that night, of a mouth that smiles at him, white like bone.


	4. Enter the Second Voice: Countermelody

**Soundtrack: **_Where Eagles Have Been _by Wolfmother. The link to the playlist is on my profile.

* * *

**Chapter Four**

Enter the Second Voice (Countermelody)

_(piu mosso)_

_

* * *

_

Dawn brings cool breezes and clear skies, and by mid-morning, Ichigo has crossed into Seireitei proper, on his way to official application at the Shinigami Academy.

It had been Rukia's "suggestion" over breakfast that he apply, laden with all the delicate undertones of _or else_. However, unavoidable responsibilities at the Thirteenth had prevented her from accompanying him, and although she'd given him a map, Ichigo finds that the hasty scrawls bear little to no actual relation to the buildings that surround him. There's an arrow and a circular sort of blob near where he thinks he might be standing; it looks kind of like a face, dotted with freckles, and he thinks the spiky bits on top might be hair. Some particular shopkeeper then, maybe, or it could be some kind of obscure road feature that only Rukia would understand—"Screw it," Ichigo says, just as a voice behind him says, "It's a strawberry."

Renji leans over him and plucks the note from his fingers. "Yeah, see? Seeds and the leaves on top."

"I thought that was hair."

"No, look," Renji says, gesturing across the street with a thumb, and sure enough, Ichigo sees a wizened old woman sitting behind several baskets of fruit—including strawberries.

"Oh," says Ichigo, retrieving the map and peering at it. It _might_ be a strawberry, he supposes, if he cocks his head and ignores what strawberries actually look like.

"She's been selling fruit here forever, as far as I know. Me and Rukia used to get stuff from her all the time, back when we went to the Academy. She always gave students good prices." Renji nods at the old woman and gets a toothless smile in return, and then he turns to Ichigo with a grin. "Rukia told me you might need a little help finding your way to the Academy today."

"Oh, don't tell me she's got you playing babysitter. I'd find it eventually."

"You're the one who can't read the map."

Ichigo waves the scrap of paper in Renji's face. "Renji, this thing has more drawings on it than actual streets. Look, that ladder going from the strawberry to the pirate hook? She told me at breakfast those were _rooftops._"

"Yeah, well—she sent me a butterfly right after she got to her division headquarters. Said she'd just left you at the Kuchiki estate, and would I mind making sure the tender flower didn't get lost on the way to the Academy—"

"Shut up," Ichigo says automatically. He feels guilty and is not sure why. "It's just until I get a room at the Academy."

"Okay, okay," says Renji, relenting. He falls into step with Ichigo, and then, without preamble, says, "My captain got a copy of your message this morning. So you're really going to take it?"

There is something in the other man's voice—but Renji's face is unreadable. "Yeah," says Ichigo with only the slightest discomfort. "I mean, it'll be weird at first, but they seem to think I'd be okay."

"Couldn't be worse than Aizen, anyway," Renji quips, but something seems to still hang on his tongue unsaid.

"Thanks for the vote of confidence. What's with you today?"

"Nothing. I'm fine."

Ichigo has no intention of letting whatever-it-is lie, not after the irritating flower comment and _especially_ not when Renji's practically dangling it in front of him. "Bullshit. You're obviously itching to say something, so spit it out before I beat it out."

Renji snorts. "As if you could. But—well, I was going to wait until later so I wouldn't rain on your parade today, recruit—"

"Asshole."

"—But I might as well tell you now." Renji hooks his thumb around Zabimaru's hilt, looking extraordinarily satisfied with himself. "Seems you're not the only one getting a promotion around here."

Understanding dawns, and Ichigo grins. "No shit. They're naming you for the Third?"

"Got the news this morning. 'Consistently proven record of excellence,' bunch of crap like that. Probably just wanted somebody to keep you in line."

Ichigo elbows him in the ribs. "Congratulations, bastard."

"Yeah, well, I'd've never been able to show my face again if you'd ended up outranking me. "

"If only your old professors could see you now."

"That's why I'm here, actually. Gotta pick up copies of some records from my Academy days. They were gonna send some unseated kid, but since I knew you were gonna be heading this way, I told them I'd grab 'em myself and keep you company."

"In other words, you just wanted to gloat."

"Shut up, asshole." Still, there is no denying Renji is pleased, and his smug expression lasts all the way to the great Academy gates.

* * *

The Academy grounds are expansive, lush green lawns dotted with long, narrow buildings—classrooms and offices at the front and the dormitories behind them, Renji tells Ichigo—and the occasional practice yard. They pass pairs of students in the red and blue uniforms; most of them are sparring with asauchi, but a small circle of girls are practicing low-level kidou against a straw target strung between two trees, and one woman with her hair in a bun has her nose buried so far in a thick stack of yellowed notes that she almost collides with Ichigo.

Renji is just turning the two of them towards the specialized training halls when a harried first-year bursts out of nowhere, Renji's Academy records clutched to his chest, to shepherd them back to the main office. He thrusts the folder at Renji, looking young and intimidated, and he's so busy tripping over his apologies that he trips over the first step. Ichigo barely manages to catch his arm before the kid falls face-first into the door.

"Easy," Ichigo says as he straightens; Renji guffaws in spite of the elbow in his ribs. The boy's cheeks flush with embarrassment, and without another word, he ushers them inside the office, leading them down a long hallway until it ends in a door. The first-year knocks, then opens it and waves them inside, cheeks still flushed, and before Ichigo can even catch the kid's name, he closes the door and is gone.

He has brought them to a wide, open-air room with polished wooden floors and sliding doors open to the veranda outside. The morning sun streams in, illuminating quite clearly the long table stretching across the room, the four high-backed chairs behind it, and the stern faces of the four people sitting in those chairs. There is a single, uncomfortable-looking chair in the dead center of the room facing the Academy heads, as Ichigo realizes they must be, and when Renji gives him a pointed jab in his spine, he steps forward.

"Hi," says Ichigo.

The bald man on the far end peers at him through his thick, round glasses and shakes his head. "Terrible precedent_, terrible_ precedent," he mutters, only subsiding when his neighbor, an elderly woman with long white hair swishing over her shoulders, gives him a disapproving look out of the corner of her eye.

"Abarai-kun," says the rotund man on the near end with a smile. "I hear you're to be congratulated."

Renji nods. "Got the word last night. Good to see you again, Kato-san, Kichida-san," he adds, grinning at the fourth member of the panel, a middle-aged man with a square jaw and a mustache. "Where's Onabara-san?"

"Sabbatical," says the white-haired woman. She gestures at the bald man on her left. "Edogawa-san has been kind enough to take over his duties for the first class in the meantime."

"It was my pleasure," Edogawa says, but his face is still sour.

"You said you'd come back to spar," the mustached man says, looking at Renji severely from under thick beetle brows. "But by my count, it's been over ten years since you bothered to visit at all, and not a word of how that fine sword of yours was doing in the meantime—"

"_But_ it's Ichigo here who's applying today, so I'll get outside and out of your way so get to it." Renji puts a hand on Ichigo's shoulder and shovesdownward_, _knocking him off-balance and into the lonely chair in the center of the room. "Beetle-brows is Kichida-san, the primary zanpakutou trainer in the Academy. Kato-san's the hand-to-hand expert—" the rotund man inclines his head, "—and Maeda-san heads the kidou department."

The woman's smile has steel behind it, and Ichigo straightens unconsciously. "And Edogawa-san teaches history," she says, taking over the introductions when Renji falters at the last man. "And the first class, since Onabara-san has left for the present. Now, Abarai-san, if you wouldn't mind? I'm sure we'd all like to get through this interview as quickly as possible."

"Uh, sure," Renji says, and he heads out the open doors to the veranda, throwing Ichigo a pitying look as he sits against a roof support beam. _Don't screw up,_ he mouths very clearly, and with that helpful advice, he begins sorting through his records with perfect unconcern.

But helpful or not, the first hour passes uneventfully enough. Most of it consists of them asking him questions; they are very familiar with his powers, thanks to a thick dossier that sits on the table before each of them. Kichida appears almost as nervous as Ichigo is, peppering Ichigo with questions about his sword almost to the point of interrogation. He answers as best he can without Zangetsu as a visual aide, although he does have to explain to Maeda why he keeps reaching for empty air over his shoulder out of habit. Eventually, Kichida sighs, "_Fascinating," _so that his mustache quivers, and his part of the interview apparently comes to a close.

Neither Kato nor Maeda have many questions for him; he is not skilled in either of their fields, and other than Maeda explaining that she would oversee his kidou studies should he be accepted, their interviews pass without incident. _This isn't so bad, _Ichigo thinks, and then the last Academy head, the balding man with the thick round glasses, steeples his fingers in front of his face.

"You may have achieved a certain degree of notoriety, Kurosaki-san," Edogawa says, "but do not expect any special treatment here. We treat all entrants the same, regardless of history, and we will not rescind that rule just for a few demonstrations of brute force." He inclines his head so that the bare skin gleams in the sunlight, and Ichigo senses more than hears Renji sniggering outside. "After all, it is bad enough that you've brought a guest to your examination, but that the board should be _railroaded _into your acceptance without so much as a by-your-leave without even the proper paperwork or recommendations—and let me tell you, my boy, Captain Ukitake's word alone does not a recommendation make—the absolute _temerity_ of it is galling. And that's not even taking into considerationthe most serious point against you—"

"Edogawa-san," Maeda says, and there is a warning in her voice.

Edogawa wheels on his colleagues in outrage. "The boy has a _Hollow_ in his heart!"

A chill lazily gropes its way up Ichigo's neck as the rest of the table turns their eyes on him and the rustling of Renji's papers fall silent. They are not surprised—after all, it is hardly a secret—but he can see concern and suspicion even in Kichida's friendly eyes. "It's true," he says. "But the Hollow was sealed by the captains just after the end of the war. It's under control."

"Under control," Maeda repeats, and flips through the dossier, trailing her finger down the page. "I see that seven of the captains participated in this binding."

Kichida sits back in his chair. "Seven captains? Then there's not a problem. I know those swords—there's nothing that could break a seal placed by seven of that strength. And besides, you know Ukitake's not stupid. This boy doesn't look stupid either."

Ichigo stays still and tries to continue not looking stupid. Edogawa glares at Kichida from the opposite end of the table, but it is Kato who breaks the stalemate at last. "Just let him be tested, Edogawa-san. It can't possibly hurt anything."

Edogawa swells in blustery indignation, but Maeda stands and shuffles her way around the table with the stiffness of someone accustomed to being seated for long periods of time and sticks her head out the door. "Wakahisa-san, can you please bring the tray—oh, thank you." She turns around, and in her hands she holds a tray with a dozen glass globes about the size of a baseball, and even after three years, Ichigo recognizes their quiet, resonating hum—they are clearly a scaled-down version of Shiba Kuukaku's globes, the ones he and he friends had used to enter Soul Society for the first time.

"This is a mistake," Edogawa tries one last time. "You are allowing the captains to manipulate the entrance exams; you're going to open a door you won't be able to close again."

"It's not manipulation if he qualifies under his own merits," snaps Kichida, and for the first time since his interview began Ichigo sees irritation in his face. "Take one of the damn globes, Kurosaki."

Ichigo picks up the one closest to him before they can change their minds. It is heavy for its size, crystal clear, and his fingertips thrum where they meet it. Maeda sets the tray with the remaining globes on the table and leans against its edge. "And now," she says drily, "if you would be so magnanimous as to infuse it with a trace of your reiatsu. It doesn't need to be much, just enough to verify that you indeed have the spiritual power necessary for our course load. It's redundant, I know, considering your illustrious patrons, but do be polite and humor an old lady."

He has to suppress a groan; he is more than two years out of practice in a skill he never had much talent for in the first place. He hesitates for a moment, dredging Ganju's voice out of the depths of his memory, and when at last he remembers _picture a deep circle filled with black, _he finds himself relieved to see the first glimmer of light in the globe's depths. _Not bad, _he thinks, feeding the slow, sure stream of his reiatsu and watching as the white flame flickers and glows in the glass.

Only, there is something—Ichigo's eyes narrow. Kichida speaks, but he forgets to listen; there is a thin hair of power stretching into his soul that he does not recognize, something slick and foreign he has never felt before. It seems to be anchored to his chest, knotted around his own power, but it writhes in the light of the globe in his hands and he can't tell where the other end of it leads—he sneaks a tendril of power out of the steady stream and probes at the whatever-it-is—something cracks like a gunshot—the smell of ozone fills his nose—

And the globe shatters in his hands.

The shocked silence that follows is punctuated only by the gentle tinkle of the shards of glass as they strike the wooden floor. The panel's eyes on him are almost tangible, but he is as surprised as they are; a drop of blood wells up from a nick on his thumb and he watches as it slides towards his palm.

"Damn, Ichigo," Renji finally says, and the moment dissolves. "It only needed a little."

"Sorry," says Ichigo, unsettled. There is something needling out of him, something intense and _wrong_, and it is suddenly vital that he speak with someone who knows his jigsaw soul as well as he does.

He needs to talk to Zangetsu.

"Well," Maeda says, voice brisk. "I think that makes it perfectly clear you at least qualify to enter the Academy."

"You are certainly powerful." Edogawa stands in a sharp movement, and the room falls quiet as they all look at him. "But," he says with severity, "you are too green. You are _untrained, _boy, and you had better learn to control yourself before you kill some poor weak soul just by looking at him sideways. We will sort the rest of your class list out later, but as of today I am enrolling you in my class on managing reiatsu. I may have been overridden in your admittance, but I will _not_ have you accidentally concussing the other students."

Kato brushes away a few errant shards of glass. "I suppose we can forgo the vote, in this case?"

"I should say so!" Kichida exclaims, thumping a fist on the table. "Welcome to the Academy, young man!"

"I—well, great."

Maeda offers him a smile and Kichida stands, saying something about him bringing along his zanpakutou once it manifests; Edogawa deigns to hand him a piece of paper with his class times and instructions to come again tomorrow for a room assignment and a uniform, and just like that, Ichigo is dismissed.

Renji clambers to his feet, his stack of papers folded under one arm, and Ichigo follows him outside. At the last second he pauses and looks back over his shoulder. "Thanks," he offers, because there is nothing else to say, but Edogawa glances up to meet his eyes for just a moment, and he smiles, and behind his ridiculous round glasses his eyes are almost warm.

* * *

"What the hell was that?" Renji hisses as they exit the Academy grounds and begin threading their way through the Seireitei streets. The morning has given way to a sunny afternoon, and the districts are growing accordingly crowded in the midday meal's bustle.

"I don't know!" Ichigo snaps back, and he gives Renji a brief account of what he had felt as he'd fed the globe his power. By the time he concludes, Renji's eyes are serious.

"Ichigo," he starts, and the tone of his voice makes Ichigo brace himself, "do you think it's the Hollow?"

"You know the captains sealed it," he says, but Renji remains unruffled.

"You know better'n anybody that the captains aren't perfect."

Ichigo remains silent, his jaw set.

"So it's possible, then. "

"It's not the Hollow. You didn't feel anything, and the Academy panel _obviously _didn't feel anything, so there obviously wasn't anything to feel. You're probably worrying over nothing."

Renji's hand shoots out and grasps Ichigo's shoulder, wheeling him around to bring the two face to face. His fingers dig painfully into Ichigo's collarbone, and when he speaks his voice is hard. "_Listen_, Ichigo. Don't fuck around with this. Maybe it's the Hollow and maybe it ain't, but if something happens, you _tell_ somebody. I don't care if it's me, I don't care if it's Rukia, I don't care if you tell the goddamn modsoul, but I swear if you try to be some damn _martyr_ I will beat the shit out of you so hard your kids will be born with headaches."

"Rukia—"

"Rukia'd help, and you know it."

Ichigo shoves at Renji's hand and he allows it to drop. His shoulder aches insistently, but Ichigo refuses to rub it on principle. "Jesus," he mutters, and then, "fine. Bastard. I'll tell somebody. I've gotta try to talk to Zangetsu, anyway."

Renji looks at him, hard, and then as if deciding he is sincere after all, lets it drop and holds up his sheaf of papers. "Good. Anyway, I've gotta turn this stuff in to the Central 46. Have fun chatting with your sword, asshole."

"Shut the hell up!" Ichigo shouts after him, eliciting no few looks from startled passersby, and he stalks off towards the Kuchiki manor in high dudgeon.

* * *

Ichigo opens his eyes.

He is standing in the peculiar gravity of his inner world for the first time in a long time, but it is only seconds before he is once again accustomed to the sideways skyscrapers and the clouds that run perpendicular to the sky.

"Old man Zangetsu," he calls, but he is not surprised when there is no answer, and after a moment, he picks a direction at random and steps forward across the windowpanes of his soul.

The blue sky gleams; there is not a trace of rain in the clouds. The wind whistles cheerfully against the buildings' walls as if it is happy to see him, and Ichigo thinks that he has waited too long to visit to this place. "Sorry," he says as if his sword can hear him, and he touches a nearby flagpole in apology.

He has been wandering for maybe twenty minutes when a thought occurs to him. Ichigo glances left and then right, trying to remember—there. He is closer than he realized. At the very edge of the building there is a patch of sky that is dimmed and grey, and Ichigo sets his feet towards it.

His Hollow is here.

The Hollow lies flat on its stomach, eyes closed and one hand still reaching out as if to grasp for him, but there are seven thick, black chains that drape heavily across his back and glow with the most powerful binding kidou the collective captains could muster. The Hollow has lain like this for two years, and in Ichigo's first superficial glance, there has been no change. Except—one of the chains catches his eye, and he kneels beside the unconscious Hollow. Ichigo is careful not to touch it—his power is similar enough to the Hollow's that it might very well break the binding altogether—but he gets as close as he dares, and the inspection reveals what his first glimpse suggested: the links that hang across the Hollow's ankle are eroding, crumbling as if they are wet sand.

Ichigo sits back on his heels, his heart like a stone in his chest. "Renji was right," he says without meaning to, and the words hang leaden in the grey sky.

"Only partly," replies a familiar, deep voice from behind him, and Ichigo tilts his head back to see the sight of his sword, comfortingly familiar in his black coat.

"Zangetsu," he says, but his gladness is tempered by the weight of his concern.

Zangetsu sweeps by him and bends over the Hollow. "Look," he says, pointing to the broken links. Ichigo obediently leans over, but there is nothing of note that he has not already seen. Still, Zangetsu watches him, silent and implacable, and then on a hunch, Ichigo closes his eyes and slips into spiritual sight. At first, he sees nothing unusual; his Hollow still sucks in the energy around him, even unconscious, and there is the long thin line of power that connects the two of them, and then—

_There._

There is another hair of power wrapped around his Hollow, one that he has never seen before, and when Zangetsu quietly steps back, Ichigo knows that this is what he was meant to see. It is wiry and faintly green and it knots its way insidiously from Ichigo's chest to his Hollow's—and even further, he notices with a sick feeling in his gut. In fact, the green line has threaded its way into all the chains, looping in on itself around and through the links.

"It's breaking the chains," Ichigo says, and indeed it is. In the remains of the links that have already crumbled, the green hair has settled into a passive coil. But just above them on the intact chain, it is tightening viciously, and Ichigo can see where it has begun to crack those links in turn.

"Where did it come from?" Ichigo asks his sword, and Zangetsu looks troubled.

"I do not know," he says, and Ichigo can see that the admission weighs heavily on him. "I have slept since your death in the human world. I only awoke for the first time today at the surge of your power, and by the time I found the Hollow, the thread was already there. My power will not touch it. He will wake eventually," he adds, and Ichigo knows he is right. "We have some time to find the source of this invasion, but I fear that there may be more to this than the simple breaking of the binding. Your friend was right that the Hollow caused, at least in part, the events of today, but it was an unconscious reaction, not active malevolence. I am afraid that there is something more, something I cannot see—" He breaks himself off and falls silent.

Ichigo gets to his feet. "There's nothing we can do about it right now," he says finally. "Neither of us can break it without releasing the Hollow, and besides, there's still a good bit of time before enough chain'll be gone to be a threat. I'll ask Rukia if she knows about this kind of thing tomorrow." He cricks his neck. "Even if she doesn't, odds are she'll know somebody who will."

"As you wish."

Ichigo leans back to look at the sky. The blue in the distance is reflected brilliantly in the windows of the skyscrapers, and for the second time since his arrival he wonders how he has managed so long without seeing it. Zangetsu is watching him, and when Ichigo notices, he straightens and sticks out a hand to him. "It's good to see you again," he says, and means it.

His sword inclines his head with something like emotion on his face. "Ichigo," he replies. He grasps the proffered hand, his fingers cool against Ichigo's.

"Zangetsu," Ichigo says, and names him.

* * *

Rukia stumbles down the last steps of the moonlit pathway towards the manor, exhausted. An entirely preventable catastrophe concerning crossed field missions had resulted in her staying well after dark to deal with the paperwork, and even though Captain Ukitake has given her the next day off, she still finds herself grumbling about idiotic sixth seats who couldn't be bothered to check a simple schedule before taking out full squadrons and then wondering why there were two in the same place—

There is a light gleaming from Ichigo's room.

Rukia sighs, wondering if he's fallen asleep with a lamp lit. Second day in Soul Society, burns down an ancestral noble home—why does that sound so plausible? With a hop onto the veranda, she cracks the sliding door that leads into his room.

"Ichigo," she hisses, but when there is no response, she pulls the door open wider. "Fool, have you—"

Rukia stops, and the irritation bleeds out of her entirely. Ichigo is indeed sleeping, slumped in a sitting position against the wall with a squat lamp burning low at his feet. But stretching up gracefully beside him, gently braced against his knees and the wall, is Zangetsu. The cloth wrapping has fallen loose to the ground and the blade glints quietly in the lamplight.

She slips off her sandals and creeps in on stocking feet to rescues the lamp, noting as she does so that Ichigo has, in his sleep, managed to wrap the end of his sword's bindings around his closed fists, like a child with a favorite blanket.

"Welcome back," she murmurs to them both, and smiles.


	5. Interloper's Interlude

**AN: **This chapter (the shortest by far of the fic, if you're curious) kind of stumbled its way into existence in a total accident, so I would really love to hear your thoughts on it. :)

**Soundtrack for this chapter: **_Lovers in Japan / Reign of Love_ by Coldplay and _This Bitter Earth / On the Nature of Daylight_ by Dinah Washington & Max Richter (Shutter Island OST). The second one is one of the most beautiful songs I have ever heard, and I highly recommend it just for the sake of listening. The link is on my profile.

* * *

**Chapter Five**

Interlopers' Interlude

_(con caprice)_

_

* * *

_

The problem with having a sword the size Ichigo does is that it tends to be very hard to hide.

He discovers this the first day he brings Zangetsu to his kidou class—a full week after arriving in Soul Society—with the weighty blade slung over his shoulder in his accustomed position. Silence ripples outward until the whole room of first-years is staring at him as if they expect him to skewer the first one that takes an errant step into his path. Ichigo isn't quite sure how to react—it's not like he can just leave Zangetsu behind, not without a damn good reason—but the spontaneous standoff is diffused by the entrance of Maeda Yuri, the white-haired woman from the Academy panel and his current kidou instructor.

"Good heavens, Kurosaki," she says, waving her hand in front of her face as if batting away a fly. "Can't you seal away that monster?"

"Not exactly." He is acutely aware of the dozen pairs of eyes on his back, but he does his level best to ignore them. "Zangetsu's always in shikai. He—doesn't like being caged."

_Close enough,_ he hears the old man rumble with amusement in the back of his mind.

Maeda shakes her head in amazement. "Precocious to the last, I see. Just sit at the back, then, and see what you can do about reeling in your loose edges."

Ichigo tamps down his bristling hackles—precocious, _really_—and skirts around the room to the near corner. The students give him a wide berth, wide enough to be irritating, and he doesn't even bother trying to keep the scowl off his face as he sits down. It takes him a few seconds to get into the mindset for managing his power, and by the time he's tucked enough of it under his skin to keep the kids near him from flinching, Maeda is already several minutes into her first-day speech. It's nothing special, as far as first-day speeches go; he's certainly sat though enough of them, and by this point he's witnessed enough kidou, both offensive and defensive, to know that he understands the concepts and principles behind it. Practical application, though, is another matter entirely, and he's not sorry when Maeda dismisses the class without asking them to summon a single spark.

He _is _sorry, however, when he finds himself somehow cornered by at least seven girls in the hallways outside, the younger few openly staring and not a damn one of them taller than Rukia. He recognizes most of them; a handful are from the kidou class he just exited, and at least two he's seen in the dormitories since his room assignment, but there are still a couple he can't place, and at the moment they don't seem disposed to enlighten him. Instead they just stand there, blocking his path to the doorway and freedom and looking at him shyly. Some of them are smiling.

_Those are creepy smiles, _Ichigo thinks, and then, _Zangetsu, I think they're interested in you. _

_Hn_, says Zangetsu.

"Hi," says the boldest of the group, a dark-haired girl with glasses who looks about fourteen. "We like your sword."

"Uh," Ichigo says. Several of the remainder burst into giggles. _Zangetsu, a little help here?_

"I'm Kimiko." She smiles and pushes her glasses back onto her nose. "What's your name?" she asks, and then adds with what Ichigo realizes with horror is supposed to be an impish smile, "What's _his _name?"

She _almost _reaches her hand forward towards Zangetsu before even her courage fails her, but an unspoken signal seems to pass between the other girls because they suddenly burst into noise, all high-pitched voices and laughter in his ears, all of them asking questions and not bothering to wait for the responses before asking the next one. Ichigo presses himself against the wall, shielding his sword from accidental touches and trying to avoid both the girls' friendly fingers and eye contact with curious passersby at the same time. He suddenly feels a tug on the sleeve of his blue and white uniform and looks down to see the youngest of them, a girl not above seven years old, standing at his elbow and blinking up with shy doe eyes.

"Uh," Ichigo says again, and the girl blushes and tucks herself behind one of her older friends.

Kimiko shoulders her way in. "She's Hotaru, but she can't even hold an asauchi yet. I'm only just learning, but Kichida-sensei says I'm very advanced for my age—"

_Zangetsu!_

_Hn, _his sword says, and this time the amusement in his voice is evident.

_You damn stubborn sword, I swear I am going to give you to them for hair ribbons, _Ichigo thinks fiercely, but before he can make good on his threat, a fine-boned hand fists itself in his collar and _pulls._

"Oh," says Ichigo as he straightens, freed from the giggling gaggle. "The girl in the glasses was taller than you after all."

Rukia is not amused.

"It's _Kimiko,_" comes a plaintive voice at his elbow.

Ichigo sucks in a breath and grabs Rukia's wrist, practically dragging her down out the door and into the brilliant sunlight. "Sorry," he calls out behind him, and he doesn't even bother trying to make it convincing.

* * *

"I did not know you had groupies," Rukia says over lunch, and it's only the barest hint of teasing in her voice that keeps him from spluttering all over himself.

"I do _not _have—how do you even know what that word means?"

"Ichigo, I spent a great deal of time in your closet reading terrible manga. I know what a groupie is."

"Don't give me that look, Rukia, they _cornered _me out there—"

"Oh, so it must have been because you towered head and shoulders over them that you were rendered helpless."

"Shut up, Rukia," says Ichigo, deftly stealing her cup of noodles right from between her hands.

She flattens her fingers on the table. "I was eating that."

"And now you're not."

Rukia cocks an eyebrow at him. Ichigo hangs onto the cup a few moments more out of sheer stubbornness—but Rukia is implacable, and he gives way first, surrendering the noodles with what is almost good grace. "Thank you," she says primly, and finishes off the rest of the dish with relish.

He has another class in less than an hour, so Rukia decides to give him a tour of her favorite spots on the Academy grounds. Most of them are vantage points for roof access or trees with excellent climbing branches, which is unsurprising, and here and there are various practice fields she points out as having the most solitude and least mud, but nestled in the farthest corner of the grounds where the southern wall meets the eastern one, half-hidden by a little hill, a small stone bench is tucked away under a low-hanging persimmon tree. Rukia darts for the bench with an exclamation of delight; Ichigo trails after her.

"It's been so long since I have visited the Academy—I am glad it's still here." She smiles as Ichigo sits, and then she springs up to stand on the bench, reaching for the tree branches above them.

"I don't think it's in bloom right now."

"It never bears fruit anymore." She brushes her hands through the branches like she is saying hello, and Ichigo watches her. Rukia is somewhere else right now, somewhere she's allowing him to glimpse, and he senses that this is more than a hidden bench under a persimmon tree. Trailing her fingers down the leaves and stem and trunk, Rukia eventually takes a breath and seats herself next to Ichigo. Several things run through his mind and he rejects them all; she is silent beside him, and he will not step into Rukia's heart uninvited, so instead, he waits. The sleeve of her kosode presses against his where they sit, black against bleached white, and even though he finds that indeed he misses his shihakusho, he'd rather she wear black than him. He doesn't like Rukia in white.

Then, as if it is a great admission, Rukia says, "I do not make friends easily." A breeze blusters through to stir the leaves above them. Ichigo doesn't say anything, and she continues. "Renji was placed in the first class, you know, and I was not, and…well. It's not that I was bullied, not really. There was nothing overt. But there were whispers, especially after my adoption into the Kuchiki family. Many whispers. And eyes always on the back of my head. I...often took refuge here."

She stands abruptly and takes a restless step towards the tree. Ichigo watches. He knows better than anyone that she is looking neither for sympathy nor pity; she has not brought him to this place for that. She has chosen to reveal to him this hidden part of herself, asking just for his ear and his understanding in return, and so that is what he will give until she asks for more.

"This place was my haven. Far enough from everything that it would not be accidentally stumbled across, not by the professors I disappointed or the students who hated my sudden ascension in the ranks. Or Renji, after my adoption." Suddenly a fleeting smile breaks across her face, gone almost before Ichigo sees it. "And I learned my sword's name here. It was the last time the persimmons were in fruit. I froze everything solid and I was desperately afraid I had killed the tree—but I've found that those around me tend to survive even my best efforts."

Ichigo wants to interrupt, wants to pull her out from the under the guilt she insists on carrying by herself—they, all of them, made their choices on their own, and their burdens were never meant for her to bear—but her tacit request is for his ears and not his tongue, so Ichigo bites back his assurances and after a moment she seems to shake it off.

"Kaien-dono helped," she says. It is the first time she has spoken of her vice-captain to him in years. "And so did Captain Ukitake, and Kiyone-san and Sentaro-san—but with them it was different. There was before his death and after his death, though, and it just…" she turns to face him, groping for words. "It changed everything. It changed me."

Ichigo leans his elbows against his knees. "There's always a before and after." He thinks of his mother and a river and rain that wouldn't stop, and from the way Rukia's eyes turn to his, he knows she has the same face in her mind. She nods in acquiescence, then she lets her head fall back on her neck until she is blinking up through the leaves, fat drops of sunlight splashing across her face.

Her eyes slide shut as Ichigo watches. Her face is composed, but there is a thickness to her movements and a stutter in her swallow that reminds him of another time, years ago, when the pounding raindrops matched the tempo of her footsteps as she left him to die.

She swallows again, hard, and this time when she speaks her throat is clearer. "I was afraid that this place had changed, too. I came here for peace so many times when I was younger. After all that had happened, I began to be afraid that I could no longer find peace here. And at the same time, I was more afraid that I might succeed."

Ichigo knows this feeling, too—has known it since he was nine. Rukia takes a breath, as if she is trying to breathe in everything about this place, the air and sounds and light, and then after a second that lengthens and pulls at them both, she opens her eyes and breathes out again, and the persimmon tree seems to sigh with her. She takes another breath, almost experimentally, and this time when she exhales there is nothing weighty about it.

"And then," she says with tinges of the haughty voice Ichigo knows better, bringing down her chin until her eyes meet his, "this young, brash human came along and destroyed my old-fashioned notions of peace altogether and changed me _again_—"

"May I remind you," Ichigo interrupts, quirking a half-smile as the tension eases, "that it was you who came walking through my wall without so much as an invitation and set a kidou binding on me, who was sitting there innocently—"

"Innocently?"

"Sitting there _innocently, _and then you drew a mustache on my face."

She laughs, startled. "Lord Baron! I had forgotten."

"Hey, come on, easy with the name-calling. I don't need a nickname like that sticking."

"_Ichigo_, then," she says, smiling, and there is something different in her voice, something deep and slow that jolts his heart into skipping a beat. He looks up at her where she stands; the light streaming through the leaves catches like fire in her hair and her eyes as she laughs at him.

"So what did I change, then?" he asks, and he hears the timbre of her words slide into his own.

"My perceptions of some things, perhaps." The smile she gives him has a momentary hint of teasing to it, and something in his stomach flips. Then she bends toward him, just slightly, so that her hair slips against her eyes, and adds, "And perhaps the way I remembered others."

He knows she is thinking of Kaien. "It can't have been that easy."

"No," she agrees as she faces him. "I think it will always hold a corner in my heart, but its hold is smaller now than it was. It seems that it had to make way for—something else."

Her turning has put her within arm's reach; his hands lift from his knees, trailing from her elbows down her arms and wrists and palms until he can draw her fingers into his own. The corners of her mouth turn up and her slender fingers curl around his like the close of a song; Ichigo wonders how he could have ever thought that her touch felt foreign to him. This is the most natural thing in the world.

"Rukia," he says, drawing her forward until her knees bump his, not sure what he is asking or even what answer he wants. His heart is hammering in his chest.

Rukia looks at him and says, "Yes."

_Ah_, he thinks, and the realization thrums in him, a heady rush that races from his heart to his hands where they touch hers. It is new and startling and utterly familiar—he has discovered it just now, and he has known since the day they met.

His fingers tighten and he pulls gently, and Rukia allows herself to be pulled, slipping one hand down to rest on his knee as she bends and the other up to touch his hair, awkward and tender, her head tipping just off-center to match the tilt of his own—he touches the hollow at the base of her neck and feels her pulse pounding as hard as his—he breathes in as she breathes out and feels the air move against his mouth—

"Here he is! Kurosaki-kun! _Kurosaki-kun!"_

Rukia's head jerks around so fast her hair gets caught in his mouth; by the time he has extricated himself she is standing straight, looking down the path to where two figures are approaching at a brisk walk. "Sorry," Ichigo mutters as he stands himself, and as the shorter of the figures, a girl with dark hair and glasses, breaks into a run, he adds, "Also, shit."

The girl quickly resolves into Kimiko, the fourteen-year-old leader of the Let's-All-Grope-Zangetsu Club from that morning, and she looks like she might actually intend to throw herself at him before he half-steps behind Rukia and puts up a hand in warning. "Anyway, I found him," she says, pouting as she turns to address the older woman, dark hair knotted in a bun at the base of her neck, approaching at a more sedate pace. Ichigo frowns. She looks familiar, somehow, but he can't quite place it in this context, and after another moment of struggle, he gives up.

"We're terribly sorry for interrupting you," the woman says, eyeing Kimiko pointedly. The girl has the sense to look abashed, but Ichigo senses a distinct lack of genuine remorse.

Out of the corner of his eye Ichigo can see Rukia's cheeks redden and he feels his own heat in response. "It's okay," he tells her, even though it is as far from okay as possible. The woman gives him a grateful smile in response.

"I really do apologize," she says again. "I'm Edogawa Rampo's secretary." That must be it, Ichigo realizes. He's probably seen her around the offices. "He sent me to ask you to come fill out some paperwork for him before your class with Kichida-sensei, if you had the time. Kimiko-chan here told me she'd seen you go off down this path."

Oh, _right_. Ichigo has forgotten classes entirely in the midst of—other things, and he shoots Rukia a helpless look. _Later,_ she mouths, cheeks still tinted pink, and before Ichigo can stop her, she is walking down the path and out of sight.

"If you'll follow me, please," the woman says gently, and, shrugging Kimiko off his arm, Ichigo strides after her in the opposite direction, his thoughts not dwelling on his classes in the slightest.


	6. Blend the Antiphonal

**AN:** Well, kids, this is the halfway point. I hope you're enjoying the ride so far, because things are about to start happening very quickly in the next few chapters. I'd love to hear what you're thinking!

**Soundtrack for this chapter: **_Oil and Water _by Incubus. The link, as always, is on my profile.

* * *

**Chapter Six**

Blend the Antiphonal

_(vigoroso)_

_

* * *

_

Rukia swipes the back of her hand across her forehead, mashing a healthy smear of dirt into her hair in the process and failing spectacularly to wipe the sweat from her eyes. A twig snaps from somewhere behind the trees to her left and she half-swivels to face them, careful to keep the empty hillside to her back. She strains her senses for any other signs of movement, but the woods she faces seem disinclined to offer any more helpful hints and instead only rustle in the morning breeze. Then, as if on cue, the eddying wind dies away, and the air stills to hang heavy and hot around her. Rukia wraps her fingers more firmly around her swordhilt and waits.

There is a breath of movement against her cheek and Rukia whips right, bringing her sword up just in time to block the blade that is whistling down. The two swords strain against each other, centimeters from Rukia's face, and for several seconds there is no sound but the creaking of hand against hilt.

Ichigo gives way first, swinging his sword away so that sparks rain between the blades. "I almost had you that time," he says, grinning, and Rukia finds herself unable to repress a returning smile.

"Still, you are out of practice," she accuses as she wipes Sode no Shirayuki clean. "You would not have been so slow a year ago."

Ichigo shrugs, unbothered. "First time sparring since the old man woke up. It'll come back."

"You're _sweating_."

"Maybe you're a slavedriver." Ichigo swipes his sleeve across his forehead.

Rukia shakes her head at the new streak of grime on his forearm; the Academy uniform, which had been a pristine blue and white so short a time ago, has been transformed in the space of an afternoon into a mass of grass stains and healthy perspiration. "When I attended the Academy, we took pride in our appearance," she says reprovingly, and sheaths Sode no Shirayuki.

Ichigo rolls his eyes. "When you attended the Academy, people still thought telephones were a pretty neat invention." He takes a few steps towards the cliff's edge and flops to the grassy precipice where it overlooks the city, rewrapping Zangetsu with the ease of much practice and then laying the sword carefully at his feet. After a moment, Rukia sits down beside him and draws her knees to her chest, and the two of them watch the city in easy quiet. Rukongai sprawls out beneath them under the afternoon sun, and in the distance Seireitei glimmers proudly against the backdrop of the towering Soukyoko Hill.

She had really meant to use her day off to catch up on her paperwork. But after that _moment_ on her stone bench—she feels her cheeks start to flush and stifles the sensation immediately; she will not be so easily embarrassed, she will _not_—she'd lost herself in the grounds and her thoughts until Ichigo had showed up at her elbow, energy brimming over from his zanpakutou class, his cheeks flushed with what she thought, _maybe,_ might be more than exertion. He'd asked her to train with him, of all things, when what she'd really wanted to do was—well. Still, he'd been so enthusiastic she couldn't find it in herself to break the moment, so she'd led him to the cliffs just outside Rukongai, where neither their shunpo nor his ridiculous reiatsu would disturb anyone.

All perfectly innocent, she'd thought, such as the circumstances allowed—and then he'd told her about the invasion of his inner world, with the green string twining around his soul and the chains binding the Hollow. She'd wanted to start searching the libraries immediately, but Kichida's lesson had still been fresh in his mind, and he'd convinced her that since they'd come all this way, they might as well take advantage of the empty woods and do some light sparring. Not, Rukia thinks, wincing as a muscle twinges in her back, that Ichigo's definition of "light" ever matches anyone else's.

A breeze picks up, teasing her hair into her face where it sticks to the still-drying perspiration on her forehead, and Rukia brushes it away from her eyes absently. The last time she'd been here, on Mount Koifushi, it had been Kaien-dono to bring her, and the place had seemed an open book to write her happiness in. Really, Rukia had never meant to return to this place, tainted as it is with the aching of a vanished peace, but somehow, being here with Ichigo is almost cathartic. The hole in her heart will never close over, not really, but seeing the hill like this, green and vibrant and glowing in the sunlight, is almost like a salve. Rukia smiles. Ichigo's fault, really, acting as new to his sword as she had with Sode no Shirayuki the day Kaien-dono had brought her, so green herself, to Mt. Koifushi.

Her mind goes again to the bench under the persimmon tree. She'd meant what she'd said, then, about the guilt she'd nurtured so long giving way to make room for—other things, and she _thinks_ he understood, at least, but then that damnable girl had shown up and interrupted them, and now the awkwardness of the interruption is hanging over them both. Ichigo has always tended towards action over conversation, and she doesn't know how to bring it up at this point in a way that won't embarrass him into silence.

She supposes the most straightforward way to handle the situation would be to just reach down, right now, and pick up where they left off, but they are hot and sweaty and they are sitting on Mount Koifushi where Kaien died and she just—can't. And worse, part of her knows these are excuses. But there are more important things to worry about, she realizes, latching on to a more legitimate reason to postpone her uncomfortable wonderings. Tomorrow after her shift she will go to the library and see what she can find about the mysterious green thread—_if_, she remembers with a twist to her mouth, she can finish that blasted stack of paperwork she'd left unattended to bring Ichigo here to train.

Foolish, she thinks with lazy amusement, allowing herself to be dragged out here like this by a tender Academy first-year. Well, perhaps not so tender, she amends, darting a quick glance over to the figure lolling at her side—

Ichigo is asleep.

Both hands are tucked under his head, his hair blowing in the errant winds, and as his face angles slightly towards her, Rukia finds herself studying him. She has seen Ichigo asleep before, of course; one didn't live in another's closet for months without catching him dozing every once in a while, but this is the first time she has seen him sleep in years. His eyebrows are practically relaxed, she thinks in mild surprise, and the absence of the scowl makes him look—not _tender_, really, but still, something disturbingly close to it.

She wraps her arms around her knees and rests her head on them, unashamedly watching Ichigo sleep. A bird lets loose a brief burst of song nearby and Ichigo shifts, his head rolling away from her. Not dwelling on anything in particular, her eyes find his ear, then the tendons of his neck, and then they drift to his collar, where Rukia's gaze abruptly focuses.

The very tip of a scar peeks out over his collarbone, and she knows it stretches down across his chest, shiny and broadening, to end abruptly against his ribs. A souvenir of Aizen's—she'd been there when it was made, actually—but it is only one of many he's accrued over the years of near-constant battle. Several have been earned for her sake, she thinks, not without a painful gratitude, but so many more have been for a higher purpose that he hadn't even originally been called to serve. She feels the beginnings of an old rancor stir in her gut and she quashes it mercilessly; she is determined to move past these useless self-remonstrations, and Ichigo would be disgusted by pity.

"What're you staring so hard at?" comes his voice suddenly, rough with sleep, and Rukia's eyes dart to his. She hadn't even realized he'd awoken, so intent had her thoughts been on his scars. His eyes are tired but focused, and she notices that his eyebrows have fallen into their usual frown.

"Your scars," she answers, abandoning pretense, and Ichigo glances down at his chest in a hazy confusion as if he is expecting to see them networking across his uniform.

"Why?" He gives up on his self-examination to adjust his head on his hands until he can see the cloudless sky between the trees.

"Because," she says, and then adds with a morbid curiosity she cannot repress, "Which one hurt the most, back then?"

"Dunno," he answers, unoffended, and considers the question. "Probably when Byakuya stabbed me through the foot. Hurt like a bitch."

Rukia studies the limb in question with interest. She knows it does not pain him now, that it hasn't for years—_Orihime_ had healed it, after all—but it still takes a long moment to quell her self-reproach. "All right," she says, because to thank him again would be abhorrent, and she falls silent.

Several quiet minutes pass before Ichigo stands, stretches, and begins beating the loose grass from his uniform. "First class with old man Edogawa this afternoon," he says by way of explanation and begins strolling back in the direction of the path.

Rukia gets to her feet as well, but as she starts after him, he stops with his back still to her. "I'd do it again," he mutters, almost too low for her to hear, and for a moment she thinks she has been imagining things until she sees the very tips of his ears turn pink, and despite her attempts to repress it, her own cheeks redden in response.

He stands still only long enough for her to catch up to him, and then, without so much as a glance in her direction, he starts striding off again with paces far too long for her to keep up comfortably. "Fool," she murmurs for more reasons than one, and she catches his hand to slow him. He obliges, after a second, and matches her pace.

Her fingers linger all the same.

* * *

Ichigo sidles into the classroom, empty save a dozen short desks, each bedecked with a large glass marble, and heads for a seat at the back near the open windows. He is not looking forward to this; familiar as he is with teachers prejudiced against him, the dislike Edogawa has for him goes beyond simple prejudice—not without reason, Ichigo admits to himself, as a man who had spent his life lecturing on the dangers of Hollows might be understandably unenthusiastic about teaching a guy with one living in his soul. But whereas in the human world Ichigo had been able to win his teachers' toleration with his grades, he expects this class to be different. He's always had trouble controlling his reiatsu; it tends to give him a blistering headache, and there hadn't been much free time during the war to give lessons on suppressing the one thing that often kept you alive.

He leans Zangetsu, wrapped and silent, into the shadows of the corner and sinks into the wooden chair nearest it. Thumbing the little glass globe provides a momentary amusement, but the gentle thrum reminds him of the entrance exam and the sense of invasion he'd felt then, and he isn't sorry for the distraction when he hears footsteps sound outside the door. He looks up just as two of his new classmates enter; a dark-haired girl appearing about his age and sporting a recently-broken nose whispers heatedly to her companion, a slightly older man with dyed brown hair, a number of thick gold earrings in each ear, and an attitude that Ichigo can sense from across the room. The pair, both in students' uniforms, make it several steps into the room before the girl notices Ichigo, and she breaks off mid-word to elbow her companion with a meaningful nod in Ichigo's direction. The man glances at Ichigo with a look in his eyes that Ichigo knows well—he's seen it too often, usually just before someone throws a punch, and he shakes his head at his terrible luck.

As if to confirm Ichigo's suspicions, the man walks over to him with a pronounced swagger and a grin designed to intimidate rather than welcome. "Hey," he says, and crosses his arms. "Haven't seen you around before."

Ichigo knows this game. He misses the solid reassurance of Chad at his back, but he can still hold his own with ease. He lets the same undertones of quiet hostility slip into his own voice and offers an equally imaginative, "I'm new."

The man's eyes narrow and for a second Ichigo thinks they really will come to blows—but then his face relaxes all at once into a mostly ungrudging smile, and the girl collapses into a chair with an aggrieved sigh. "You are such an _idiot_," she mutters, but the man pays her no attention.

He leans against the desk in front of Ichigo's. "New, huh? What year are you?"

Ichigo hesitates for a second, thrown by the sudden shift in mood. "Uh, first, I guess. Only applied a week ago."

The other man's eyebrows shoot up, but he doesn't press the issue. "Yeah? Me'n Yoshida are sixth years, first class. Sasaki Isamu," he adds by way of introduction. "And she's Yoshida Noriko." He jerks a thumb in her direction and Yoshida gives him a bored nod, though her eyes still glare at her companion over her bruised face.

"Kurosaki Ichigo. How'd—" Ichigo begins, gesturing loosely at his own nose.

Yoshida props an elbow on her desk. "Impromptu hand-to-hand tournament in a bar over in 64th. A couple of guys in the second round thought I was an easy target," she says evenly. "I re-educated them."

"I helped," Sasaki puts in with some asperity, and Yoshida throws him a nasty look.

"_You_ bet them to do it in the first place, asshole!"

"You were the one who said you were bored—you said you'd been spoiling for a fight, I was just trying to _help_—" Sasaki looks genuinely wounded, an expression that doesn't quite seem to fit his face, but Yoshida is unimpressed. This is clearly what they'd been arguing about when they'd entered, and Ichigo wonders briefly if he ought to step in. However, the situation resolves itself as a clamor of voices arises from just outside and the door slides open to reveal the rest of their classmates. There are nine of them in varying ages and sizes; the youngest is a short girl who looks no older than twelve drowning in a uniform far too large for her, while the oldest is a man in his late thirties deep in discussion with the woman next to him. They all arrange themselves around the classroom, chatting easily and with only a few glances at Ichigo's corner, but he is relieved that the entrance of the others seems to have defused the brewing argument.

"So, sixth-years." Ichigo starts, partly out of a desire to continue the distraction and partly out of real curiosity. "Then have you decided which division you want to join?"

Yoshida looks at him as if he'd just suggested they switch from zanpakutou to hearty handshakes. "Eleventh, of course."

Sasaki nods with a crazy grin, then leans in towards Ichigo with a conspiratorial look in his eyes. "I once saw Captain Zaraki out in the field with my own eyes. He took out three Hollows in one swing, _laughing_ the entire time!"

Ichigo winces. "Good luck with that," he says, and hopes they don't hear the reserve in his voice.

"What about you? Kurosaki, was it?"

He opens his mouth, but before he can answer, Yoshida cuts in with a frown. "Wait, that name sounds familiar to me. I don't think I've met you before, but I _know_ I've heard it."

Ichigo blinks. He knows the Academy is insulated—he hadn't met a single student over the course of his treks into Soul Society, after all—but this is far more isolation than he'd expected. And at the same time, he finds that he doesn't mind the anonymity; for once, he can almost pretend he's on an even playing field in Soul Society, a student just like everyone else in the room, and he offers as explanation, "I helped in the war. Before I came here."

Yoshida snaps her fingers. "That's it. I must've heard it from some of the shinigami in the bars. Some of them can't shut up about the war. So, which division?"

"Fifth."

Sasaki's eyebrow shoots up, the ring through it quivering. "Isn't the fifth one of those captainless divisions? Why the hell'd you want to go for one of those?"

As much as he values his privacy, he won't lie to them. "Uh—"

"Geez, Sasaki, he's got five years, they'll probably have somebody by then—"

"Actually—"

But Ichigo is cut off by the arrival of Edogawa Rampo bustling stiffly into the room, glasses and bald head and irritated glances in Ichigo's direction, and as the classroom falls silent and attentive, Ichigo resigns himself to the fact that, dead or alive, he is never going to escape the tyrannical power of the educational bureaucracy.

* * *

Still, the next two weeks find Ichigo easily settling into a routine. He feels his strength returning every day, and he spends the mornings testing it in training with Renji or Rukia when they are available and Ikkaku when they aren't. By noon, if the Eleventh—who invariably hijack the spars into gleeful free-for-alls—has left him with few enough bruises to skip a quick visit to the Fourth, he grabs lunch from one of the roadside stands on his way to the Academy for his afternoon classes. His evenings are generally spent at the library or in the Thirteenth's offices, poring over stacks of parchments and old books; Rukia tells Ukitake of Ichigo's problems almost immediately after the morning on the mountain and her captain offers what assistance he can, although he is kept busy enough that it mostly amounts to trays of tea and snacks when they find themselves drowsing over the pages.

The classes themselves are nothing much to speak of; his kidou still alternates between spectacularly exploding in his face and spectacularly failing to materialize altogether, and he's also been enrolled in a standard first-year course on materializing zanpakutou that seems to be nothing more than sixty young cadets frowning very hard at nothing in particular while Ichigo sits at the back of the room feeling uncomfortable.

As he settles into the routine of his classes, Edogawa, at least, seems more willing to tolerate him. The only thing they've done is put tiny amounts of reiatsu into the glass marbles on their desks in a miniature mimicry of the admissions exam. Sasaki bursts three globes in the first week, something he seems irksomely proud of until Edogawa informs him with a face like thunder that any further breakages would result in a delayed graduation. Ichigo, at least, has managed to control the amount he feeds into the globes, albeit with admittedly dubious success—the very first time he tries, he feels that horrible green thread of wrongness leaching from him into the glass marble and he panics, sending out a small surge of power that cracks audibly in the quiet of the classroom. Still, save a few curious glances and a reprimanding glare from Edogawa, it attracts little attention outside of the classroom, and for whatever reason, his attempts after that have not awoken the green thread winding its way around his soul, resulting in several large but satisfactory infusions that at least allow him passing grades.

Early in the course, Ichigo finds that the mindset Edogawa's class requires is ideal for attempting kidou, and he bribes Rukia with a blank sketchpad to meet him in the Academy's training halls two evenings a week for practice. They try the Kuchiki grounds only once; when a brilliant blue ball of flame accidentally erupts and reduces the number of giant koi by one, Byakuya unceremoniously declares the gardens off-limits, and the pair retire to the Academy's public training halls in chagrin.

Still, the extra practice is helping. In the last session, he'd managed to manifest a tiny red ball of energy that neither exploded nor maimed any unwitting koi. Rukia had even deigned to call him "not entirely hopeless," which he takes as the compliment it was meant to be.

Tonight, however, seems determined to undo all the goodwill he's earned in one fell swoop. His kidou is refusing to materialize; no matter how clearly he envisions stepping into the black circle of calmness in his mind, his fingers remain stubbornly void of even the smallest speck of energy. Rukia is looking more and more peeved in the light of the tall lamps and he can tell she is on the verge of calling it a night.

"One more time," Ichigo says tersely, and it takes a second before Rukia gives an irritated nod, and before she can change her mind, he contorts his fingers into the first position. "Oh lord, mask of blood and flesh, all creation, flutter of wings, ye who bears the name of Man—"

Something twitches in his soul.

Ichigo's voice falters with his concentration, but he takes a breath and gathers himself for a second try. "Oh lord, mask of blood and flesh—"

This time there is no mistaking it—the something jerks again, _hard_, as if yanking on a line fastened directly to his breastbone, and without wasting another instant, barely aware of Rukia short-temperedly grabbing his fingers to correct their position, Ichigo is diving breathlessly into his inner world.

* * *

He only needs the briefest instant to orient himself. Besides, there is no _time_; in the space of a heartbeat he is racing across the sideways skyscrapers to where he knows the Hollow lies; now that he is here, he knows this is the source of his problem as sure as he knows his sword's name. And indeed, as the binding grounds come into sight, he can see Zangetsu's figure towering over the still-prone shape of the Hollow, and Ichigo allows himself a sigh of relief. But it does not last; as Ichigo approaches, Zangetsu's face pulls into a serious frown, and Ichigo can immediately see why.

A full third of the chains have eroded, and the Hollow's arms are free.

The green thread winds its way through the chains, but Ichigo can see that it no longer stops at the end of the metal; now it has twisted around the Hollow's wrists, and ankles, and seems to want to creep further. The fact that it still sleeps is only a mild consolation. Even as he stands there, there is an ominous rumble beneath his feet and before he can move away, the Hollow's arms thrash unconsciously and _wildly_ and he bucks against the glass beneath him. A window cracks under its elbow, and Ichigo feels the same jerk behind his breastbone that he did in the real world.

His eyes fly to Zangetsu's, and when his sword returns his gaze as gravely as he's ever seen him, Ichigo knows that he is in serious, _serious_ trouble.

* * *

"_Ichigo!"_

His eyes jerk open. Rukia is kneeling so close to him her knees press against his, and her face is tense and worried. The room seems dimmer than he'd left it and almost not quite in focus, and Ichigo shakes his head sharply to clear it.

"What happened?" she asks, and her voice is low. "I have known you to lose control before, but not like that."

Damn, his head is still groggy. "What do you mean?"

She jerks her head over one shoulder, and Ichigo follows it to see the small wooden target they had been using for practice blown into two charred, smoking pieces. Two of the tall lamps have been overturned, explaining the dimness of the room; their glass chimneys are shattered and scattered in the tatami mats. He starts and turns back to Rukia, stunned, and she sees his confusion.

"Your reiatsu surged uncontrollably as I was correcting your hand positions," she explains tersely. "Because you had not finished the incantation, the power had no direction or control and was threatening to injure us both. Since you would not respond, I had to use my own kidou to redirect it safely away."

There is a quiet moment as Ichigo tries to swallow down his guilt, and his eyes fall to his lap. Belatedly, he realizes that her hands are still wrapped around his fingers from her efforts to control his botched kidou attempt. There are livid singe marks across her knuckles, and without conscious thought, he swipes futilely at them as if to erase them from existence. "Sorry," he mutters to her fingers.

Her hands gently close around his in answer, and when she speaks, Ichigo can feel her breath against his cheek. "I am frightened and angry," she says softly. "I would prefer an explanation."

He forces his eyes up to meet hers, gripping her hands like a lifeline. "Rukia," he says, and his voice is heavy in his own ears, like stones dropping one after another into a pond, "the Hollow is waking up."


	7. Requiem for the Living

**AN:** Guys, I am so sorry for the delay on this chapter. I did some extensive last-minute rewriting, and just as I sent off the revised chapter to my beta, her hard drive died and she started her new job—in short, real life intervened and betaing fell a little low in the priority list. But we're both back, and hopefully there won't be a delay like this again!

**Soundtrack for this chapter: **_Dismantle__. Repair._ by Anberlin and _Sleepers _by Saosin. The playlist link is, as always, on my profile.

* * *

**Chapter Seven**

Requiem for the Living

_(veloce)_

_

* * *

_

It takes Ichigo all of about four seconds to realize visiting his father had been a bad idea.

It's not like he's even planning to see the old man, at first. In the dimness of the training room he'd been certain that the Hollow had been on the brink of emergence—and then he'd felt the bindings of the captains settling back around the Hollow and the green thread tugging at it, and his control had returned with it. Rukia had been adamant he consult Urahara about his gradually-awakening Hollow, and they and Renji had planned on visiting the real world together, but Rukia had been called away at the last minute, and he and Renji had been left to visit on their own.

Urahara has no ideas for Ichigo's problem and promises only to look into it. Renji, on the other hand, he has more than enough work for; Ichigo hears something about freeloader's debts and takes off before he can be pressed into service. He thinks to visit the twins before heading back to Soul Society—Yuzu in particular hadn't taken his leaving well—but Ichigo has forgotten that the twins are visiting Kyoto on a school trip, and his noisy entrance home and subsequent refrigerator foraging is greeted only by Isshin peeking around the kitchen's doorframe with the most woeful puppy eyes he can muster.

Ichigo freezes, a cup of water in one hand and a half-eaten apple in the other. "Oh," he says intelligently. "Hey, Pops."

Isshin's eyes gleam with unshed tears and his mouth pulls into a full pout, but he makes no move from out of the doorway.

Ichigo takes another bite from the apple.

Isshin's eyes rival twin lakes in limpidness.

Ichigo sighs and tosses the cup into the sink. "Forget it. I'm going back to Soul Society."

"My _delinquent son_," Isshin cries, and with that launches himself across the room in his version of a loving embrace. Ichigo returns this with his own version, a loving kick to the solar plexus, and a brief—but loving—scuffle ensues.

Once the formalities have been dispensed with and Ichigo has scrounged up a new apple (the old one had been embedded in the drywall at some point and Ichigo isn't sure it can be removed without damaging the structural integrity of the house), the two men manage to arrange themselves with something resembling civility around the kitchen table.

"So, my delinquent son," Isshin grins with a conspiratorial wink. "It hasn't even been quite a month. Homesick so soon? Skipping classes just to visit your old man? I'm _touched._"

Ichigo leans back in his chair and takes a bite of his fresh apple. "Nah, classes were cancelled. Some third-year learned her zanpakutou's name in the middle of class and her shikai manifested with a mini-tornado that took out half the training halls. Everything's postponed until they get it rebuilt." The front two legs of his chair hit the floor with a quiet thump, and Ichigo looks at his father. "Actually, I came to see Urahara-san."

"I know."

"How do you always know these things?"

"I'm psychic!"

"I think you bribe that little red-headed kid."

"Jinta-kun is a very obliging young man. Yuzu likes him."

"She does _not."_

"You wouldn't know! You're dead. Contrary to my _specific instructions, _might I add—'die after me,' I believe those were my exact words, horrible son."

Ichigo pushes his fingernails into the waxy skin of the apple, making little white crescents that dribble juice down the sides of his fingers. "Shit happens."

Isshin lets out a quiet breath that is not a sigh. "Kisuke told me himself," he admits. "He wanted to know if I'd heard of anything like it before."

Ichigo's heart sinks. "So he doesn't know what's going on either. Even Rukia hasn't found a damn thing in the library."

Isshin looks at him over the table, and Ichigo suddenly sees his medical textbooks are stacked at his place, a tiny colorful tower he hadn't even noticed. The fat little dictionary is on top, its orange cover winking cheerfully in the sunlight, and Ichigo suddenly wants to knock the thing to the floor—it is part of a life he never got to live, not even _start_, really, and he feels the glower settle on his face.

"It wouldn't do any good," Isshin points out, accurately reading his thoughts. "Even Yuzu and Karin've grown out of tantrums."

"Yeah, well," Ichigo says, knowing he is sulking and not particularly caring. "I obviously should've just saved the money. Then I could use it to buy some Hollow-B-Gone and just exterminate this damn thing."

With a snort that makes Ichigo jump, Isshin sits straight up and pounds the table with a fist. "Stop whining!" he cries, ignoring his son's stare, and then he continues. "Your idiot stubbornness beat down your soul's houseguest before, so just demonstrate a little of that prized mulishness and do it again! I'm sure you haven't made a single new friend with your selfish griping, so why don't you stop chasing away those coeds with your eyebrows and try a little optimism?" He snorts and continues more huffily, "Not that you listened to me last time—_so _disrespectful. And _now_," he adds, leaning over the table to punctuate his words with a finger to Ichigo's chest, "you are going to go _back_ to Soul Society, and you are going to deal with this _as it comes_ and not before, and most importantly—you are _going_ to say hi to Rukia-chan for me."

Ichigo slaps his father's hand away, but there is color in his cheeks. "You are a damn crazy old man," he snaps. "Besides, I was about to go back anyway. Not like I could stick around here for your damn pep talks."

Isshin puts his hands behind his head, looking pleased with himself as Ichigo stalks out of the room. "Come back here first the next time you feel all gloomy, Daddy's always got a shoulder for you to weep on—"

"Shut _up,_ old man," Ichigo shouts from the foyer, and Isshin hears the front door slam shut behind him.

"My little idiot son," he says with a short laugh, and after a moment, he stands and follows Ichigo out of the room.

Left behind is the apple, quietly resting tilted on the stack of textbooks just outside a dusty beam of afternoon sunlight, the white crescents from Ichigo's fingernails dripping juice down the red skin.

* * *

Ichigo catches up with Orihime and Ishida downtown entirely by accident.

He's on his way back to Urahara's shop; he and Renji have only managed permission for an afternoon's leave, after all, and he's not interested in pressing his leeway so soon—but then before he knows it he's running past the little café where he died, and Orihime is standing up from the same little white table where she is sitting with Ishida to shout his name. Ichigo skids to a stop, startled, and Orihime takes full advantage of his surprise to drag him over to the table she is sharing with Ishida.

"Sit here, Kurosaki-kun," she says even as she pushes him into the empty chair still in the umbrella's shade. There's a veritable mountain of fabric heaped on the table, yards of bright prints and colorful cottons and satins all mixed together with an army of buttons scattered over the pile. "Do you want anything to drink? We can tell the waitress it's for a dead friend of ours—which is true, actually, now that I think about it—although she might wonder why the glass is empty when she picks it up again."

Orihime looks genuinely perturbed at the logistics of getting him a drink, and Ichigo can't help but grin. "It's fine, Inoue. I can't stay long, anyway." She shakes her head with a brief pout, but it doesn't last as she takes her seat again next to Ishida—who, Ichigo realizes, has been turning the pages of a foreign paperback and generally ignoring him. Ichigo leans back in his chair. "Hey, Ishida, how's it going?"

Ishida raises an eyebrow, taking a sip from his glass of water, and gives him a pointed look. "Kurosaki. I see Soul Society's tenets of Academy attendance have already become less rigorous. Or are you just skipping class?"

"Neither," says Ichigo. "A girl's shikai manifested and destroyed parts of the compound. Classes are cancelled until they get rebuilt. What the hell is all this fabric for?"

"Oh!" Orihime says, and she grabs two similarly-colored damasks from the top of the pile. "Kurosaki-kun, which one of these do you like better? Ishida-kun likes the cornflower one, but I thought it would be too heavy for curtains."

"Curtains?" Ichigo can't tell the difference between the two, but when Orihime looks at him expectantly, he hazards a guess and picks the one on the left.

Orihime furrows her brow and studies the fabric, running her fingers over its texture. "That's the one Ishida-kun picked. I suppose we ought to try it then—oh, curtains!" She folds the damask and replaces it on the top of the pile, laying a striped gold tweed over it thoughtfully. "I'm redecorating! Ishida-kun is helping me on weekends when he's not in school."

Ichigo thinks of the little tower of medical books on his kitchen table, the ones he has never opened. "That sounds like fun."

"Oh, it _is," _Orihime says, her eyes lighting up. "Last week we made slipcovers, and this week it's curtains; I've been cooking, too, and Ishida-kun has been very kind and has tried a bit of everything I've made, even though the chips were—well, a bit burnt, and the cucumbers didn't _quite_ go with them—"

Ishida meets his eyes, then, and there's a faint exasperated resignation in them behind that makes Ichigo grin again. It's nearly impossible to say no to Orihime when she's this excited about something, even for Ishida—_especially _for Ishida, he amends—and judging by the fluttering of her fingers as she describes their latest sewing escapades, she's utterly delighted. Ishida finally sets his little paperback aside and joins the conversation, interjecting occasional corrections to Orihime's stories, and Ichigo lets the sound of their voices wash over him. He really has missed them, he realizes.

"Oh—" says Orihime suddenly, "but you said you couldn't stay long, Kurosaki-kun. Tell me, how is Soul Society going? Are you making a lot of friends at the Academy?"

He winces. _Does Sasaki count?_ "They've been keeping us really busy, actually. I have to take a bunch of extra classes since they're naming me captain."

Ishida's eyebrows shoot up; Orihime knocks her glass of tea over, staining a navy denim that drapes over the edge of the table. "They're _what?"_

"I—oh, _shit_—I thought I'd said—hang on, I wrote it down—" He pats his pockets and eventually comes up with a thick little packet of letters that he hands to Orihime. "Here, I've been writing—sorry, I forgot I hadn't delivered them. There's one for everyone there, I think. Yuzu and Karin, too, if you don't mind playing messenger—I stopped by my house earlier today, but my dad was there, and, well. It got a little crazy."

Orihime takes the packet and begins thumbing through it, extracting hers and Ishida's from the stack. Ishida takes his with evident surprise before tucking it between the pages of his book. "_Letters_, Kurosaki?"

Ichigo huffs, feeling the edges of embarrassment creeping up his neck. He'd spent a good deal of time on Ishida's, too—there are several carefully-chosen Shakespearian insults in his letter that he's quite proud of. "I _knew _you were going to be difficult, dammit. And it wasn't my idea, Rukia made m—it was Rukia's idea."

Orihime looks up with a smile. "And how is Kuchiki-san doing?" Her fingers trail along the edges of the envelope, lingering on the corners.

"Doing well. Busy, like all of us. She says hi, by the way. Wants everyone to come visit when they have a break."

"Of course," says Orihime, and she presses her letter flat against the table. "I've missed Kuchiki-san. We'll come soon—and this time we won't even have to invade, so that's probably really good."

Ishida looks at her across the table—for a second he looks like he's going to say something, but then he thinks better of it and instead glances back to Ichigo. "Yes. We'll have to see how much time it takes for your subordinates to rise up in revolt."

Ichigo rolls his eyes, but allows him the point when Orihime smiles again. "Oh, that's right! Captain Kurosaki-kun—that's so exciting! Which division is it?"

"Fifth."

"Ah," Ishida says. His glasses gleam. "That's interesting."

Ichigo levels a look at him. "Don't worry. It's not going to be how it was before—I'm going to change things."

Orihime laughs, then, clear and bright, and both men look at her. "Then you don't have anything to worry about after all!"

"What do you mean, Inoue?"

"Oh, Kurosaki-kun," she says, and the brilliance of her smile startles him. "Haven't you realized? You've _always _been good at that."

* * *

He finds Renji waiting for him outside Urahara's shop, and the bastard smirks when he sees Ichigo. "Damn, who the hell have you been talking to? You're practically _perky."_

"Nobody, asshole. Just my dad. And I saw Inoue and Ishida at that restaurant where I died."

"Well, whatever they said, it looks like it shook you out of that sulk."

"Shut up," Ichigo grumbles, and Renji opens the doorway home.

* * *

Ichigo had suspected that this whole expedition had been dumb to begin with, and now, slouching on a boulder well away from the action with Zangetsu still cozily wrapped beside him, he is certain of it.

It had been one of Sasaki's ideas in the first place, which ought to have been his first warning; the repairs to the Academy compound from the girl's shikai had been taking longer than expected, and after the first boring week, Sasaki decides to petition the professors to allow him and a handful of upperclassmen to take some of the newest students on a Hollow-hunting expedition.

Sasaki corners him in his room at the Academy one evening in order to offer the honor of joining his magnificent company. Ichigo is doubly annoyed; Sasaki's assumption that Ichigo is delighted to join him is irritating as _hell, _and the fact that Sasaki had managed to trap him in the first place grates something terrible—but what makes it that much worse is the fact that he is genuinely intrigued by the offer. He's been busy enough lately that he hasn't had a chance to tag along with Renji or Ikkaku on their expeditions, even though they'd both offered, and while sparring keeps him in shape, it is no substitute for the real thing. In the end, it is Edogawa's secretary that persuades the professors to allow it, and Ichigo finds the opportunity of getting out into battle too tempting to turn down.

He still hasn't found a good opportunity to inform his classmates of his impending captaincy, either. The ideal moment had passed in their introductions, and there are so few openings in casual "how've-you-been-fine-thanks" conversations to gracefully slip in the little tidbit that he'll shortly be outranking them. And besides, Soul Society is a big place; the fact that the other students haven't recognized him—Yoshino had barely even registered his name in the first place—is enough of a sign that he and his power can get away with anonymity, at least among the students and lower ranks.

And yet, somehow, he'd managed to delude himself into thinking that he'd be doing a little more on this mini-field trip than just sitting and _watching._

But here he is, the only one among the fifteen or so first-years without an asauchi, sitting on a handful of boulders while Sasaki and Yoshino and the rest of the sixth-years prance around a few weak Hollow, a thousand paces of white sands and scattered dunes separating him from the sixth-years and the Hollows they're fighting. A bored-looking fifth-year called Tomoe recites off an educational play-by-play guaranteed to thoroughly kill any lingering dregs of excitement. As Yoshino leaps up in the distance to her elephantine opponent's shoulders, Tomoe launches into a tedious explanation of why it is important to attack Hollows from behind, and with that, Ichigo tunes out.

Damn, if he doesn't miss Rukia's training. At least then it was hands-on. _This_ is just mind-numbing.

He leans back on his elbows and tilts his face up to the afternoon sky. The autumn sun is still hot against his face, and he allows himself to relax ever-so-slightly, thinking about nothing in particular while Tomoe drones on. The thought that at least they are out of the classrooms drifts vaguely through his mind, and Ichigo closes his eyes, Tomoe's voice fading to a low hum against the distant shouts of laughter and even fainter rings of clashing steel and the occasional hiss of kidou, a perversely soothing lullaby.

Ichigo doesn't even realize he's dozed off until he is awoken by a tap on his shoulder. His hand reaches for Zangetsu automatically; the war has taught them all that peculiar state of wakefulness that has one battle-ready before they are fully conscious, and it isn't until Ichigo's fingers brush the wrappings that still safely swath the blade that he remembers where he is. Tomoe has wandered towards the other end of the group of students to answer a question, and he can still see Sasaki and the others fighting the two Hollows that remain. A quick glance over his shoulder reveals the owner of the tapping hand to be a short, young girl he vaguely recognizes—she's friends with that bold girl, Kimiko, the one who likes his sword. Ichigo braces himself unconsciously, but this girl seems disinclined to do more than talk; she shifts her weight and Ichigo realizes there are two more boys lurking behind her, all looking like jumpy sheep.

"U-um, excuse me," she begins, tucking her dark hair behind her ears nervously, "but—we were wondering—is your zanpakutou unsealed for a reason?"

Oops. Maybe not that anonymous after all. "Zangetsu's never been sealed," he answers almost shortly, and when the girl looks like she might faint, he forces himself to soften his tone. "He's never been crazy about the idea, so this is how he stays."

"But," says one of the boys behind her, looking shocked at his own temerity, "it's _your _sword. Can't you just force it to seal itself?"

Ichigo exhales, feeling the beginnings of a headache pressing behind his eyes. What the hell are they _doing_ in those classes? "Listen kid, shinigami and zanpakutou's not a master-and-servant thing. It's a _partnership_, okay, give and take. I'm not gonna force Zangetsu to seal himself any more than he chooses. You're gonna entrust your life to your blade and if you're lucky it'll lend you its power, so I don't want to hear any more shit about _forcing._ Got it?"

The kid nods, thoroughly cowed, and Ichigo feels a little uncomfortable. That had turned into a little lecture of his own without his meaning it, but damn it, that kind of thing is important.

But he clearly hasn't intimidated them overmuch, because the girl speaks up again—what _was _her name?—asking what it had been like when he learned his sword's name, and Ichigo gives a brief and edited version of the story, since "violent and painful" don't appear to be the most inspiring words he could choose at the moment. The girl and the first boy trade questions for the next few minutes, and Ichigo finds himself wondering when the heck this little outing had turned into an interrogation—at least until the third kid, who'd remained silent up to this point, finally gathers the courage to speak.

"Are you—" he starts, but it is as if those two words have sapped all of his courage away, and he subsides with an embarrassed glance at his friends.

Ichigo bites back his annoyance. "Just spit it out, kid."

The boy takes a breath. Like he has to peel each word off his tongue, he finally manages, "Are you—the man who—are you—Kurosaki—Ichigo?"

The girl darts a shocked look between her Ichigo and her friend, but Ichigo isn't sure why. "Uh, yeah?"

"Then you're the one who killed Aizen," the boy blurts in a tone that dares Ichigo to contradict him, and the excited glances of the other two tells him they'd suspected as well.

"Oh." Well, damn. Of all the possible people he'd expected to make the connection, this random first-year had not been one of them. "Well…yeah."

"But why are you _here?"_ asks the girl in something akin to desperation. "You should be out—having parades, or—or saving damsels in distress!"

Ichigo almost laughs. "Tried that. Twice, actually. Never seems to work out quite like you plan it." The girl actually looks ready to argue with him, but the third kid interrupts again. Ichigo is starting to feel like he's on a game show.

"My brother says they've asked you to be captain of the Fifth Division," he says, this time with marginally more confidence.

"Jesus, kid," Ichigo says with exasperation. "What, are you tapping phones or something?"

"Tapping…?"

He sighs. He forgets, sometimes, that souls dead ten decades and souls dead ten days don't look any different. "Never mind. How'd you hear about it?"

"My brother is the ninth seat of the Sixth," he replies, and Ichigo sees a sudden pride in his eyes. "He fought with Vice-Captain Abarai during the war. My brother heard from him that the new captain was attending the Academy and then he told me, and I've been trying to figure out who it was ever since. And then I saw your sword and—well, I figured it just had to be you."

"A regular detective," Ichigo grumbles. "Listen, don't spread it around, okay? I figure things are gonna get crazy enough once I get out of here; I don't need a bunch of battle-happy warmongers following me around for a replay."

The kid nods, seemingly out of questions for the moment, and Ichigo is just beginning to wonder if he'll have a chance to resume his nap when a sudden scream blisters the afternoon air.

Ichigo whips around just as the scream is abruptly cut off, and the empty silence that lingers is worse.

Ten Huge Hollow have emerged from nowhere, converging on the distant forms of the sixth-years. Ichigo's mind races even as he brings Zangetsu forward, the cloth binding rushing to unravel as if it senses his urgency. Impossible. _Impossible. _That many Huge Hollow at that distance—he ought to have sensed their approach, ought to feel them _now _like a slimy finger on his neck, but there is absolutely nothing—as far as his spiritual senses go, they don't even exist.

Then one of the Hollows, a low-slung catlike thing, catches a glimpse of the little group of first-years, and when it turns and begins bounding across the sands towards them, Ichigo takes a half-step forward. His blood is pulsing in the anticipation of battle. But the kids—

"Get them out of here," he bellows to Tomoe, and when the useless man simply fucking stares at him with big bewildered eyes, Ichigo spits in annoyance and grabs that third kid who'd known about him, the detective, by the collar of his kosode. "_You_ get them out of here," he snaps, and to his credit, the kid-detective pulls himself together and nods. "Keep an eye on the rear for stragglers," Ichigo continues, his words nearly tripping over themselves as the leonine Hollow draws closer. "Get a hell-butterfly to Captain Unohana, tell her where we are, tell her there are casualties, we need the Fourth –_shit, _that thing's fast!"

The Hollow has already covered more than half the distance to them, and Ichigo has no more time for instructions—if he waits any longer, he runs the risk of the students being caught up in the battle. Shouting one final "_Go!", _he takes off towards the Hollow without waiting to see if his orders are followed, only sparing a breath to hope his reiatsu has recovered enough to take on multiple Huge Hollow by himself.

The giant creature leaps once Ichigo gets within striking distance, and its claws meet Zangetsu's upswing in a clash that sends sparks flying and makes Ichigo's ears ring. They strain like that for a breathless moment, each trying to get the upper hand, and then the Hollow slides its claws down Zangetsu's blade and darts a swipe at Ichigo's bent knees.

He jumps back ten paces and then immediately lunges back towards the Hollow, aiming Zangetsu's tip at the muscular junction of shoulder and neck, but the Hollow swivels out of the way on its back feet in a physiologically improbable manner and swings up a paw that catches Ichigo heavy across the back of his shoulder, then raking its claws down his back and ribs in a fiery stripe of pain.

_Shit_, he thinks, ducking under a second swipe and out of the Hollow's range. That had been horribly careless of him; it has been far, far too long since he's fought anything but the piddling Hollows that still occasionally visited Karakura, and even then he'd had some of the strongest help in the human world only a phone call away. Now, facing a real threat and with shinigami lives on the line, he's entirely neglected to read his opponent's center of balance and left himself wide open as a result. _Shit_, he thinks again, but forces himself to take a breath. _Calm down. Calm down. _

They've reached a temporary impasse; the Hollow is prowling back and forth a dozen paces from him with the tip of its tail twitching excitedly, but Zangetsu is braced steady in his hands, and Ichigo knows he has to only wait for an opening. If only he could use bankai—but to try it now, untested and with his reiatsu so weak, would be stupidly reckless. As it is, he can't even be certain of his ability to use Getsuga Tenshou more than once, and _dammit_, if he ends up having to use it he sure as hell is going to take out more than just this crappy cat.

Someone screams again, and the Hollow flicks an ear in the direction of it—_there. _Ichigo needs only the briefest burst of shunpo—and this fight is over. Zangetsu slides into the Hollow's face as smoothly as silk, and before the split mask has even finished disintegrating, Ichigo is already sprinting towards the remaining Hollows.

The sixth-years have managed to slay one of them, he notes—at least, there are only eight of the ten remaining that he can see, but there are at least two shinigami puddled in boneless heaps in the midst of the battlegrounds, which means that there are only seven students for the eight remaining Hollow. Someone has to be doubling up, and Ichigo scans the sandy plains as he runs.

_There. _Sasaki, of course. He and his ridiculous jewelry have drawn his two opponents, a long slender weasel of a Hollow and a big six-legged grey thing, a good ways from the others for both their safety and his own. His released zanpakutou is firing fat triangles of flame from its V-shaped blade, and though Ichigo can see multiple charred patches on the Hollows' hides, neither of the giant creatures seems much the worse for wear. Sasaki, though, is panting, and he occasionally swipes at a deep gash in his forehead that freely bleeds into his eyes.

Bizarrely, neither of the Hollows have sensed his approach—with the power he is pouring off, one of them ought to have at least blinked in his direction—but Ichigo doesn't waste his time wondering why, and with a final burst of speed from his pounding legs, he leaps over the crouched haunches of the weasel Hollow and lands cleanly on the forehead of the larger six-legged one, sword first.

Both the massive weasel and Sasaki wheel round to gape as the creature collapses into nothing beneath Ichigo with a wail, and the remaining Hollow, judging this newcomer to be greater threat than his previous opponent, turns its back on a bewildered Sasaki in order to give Ichigo its full attention.

"K—_Kurosaki?" _

"Not now!" Ichigo shouts. "Just help me flank the damn thing!"

To his surprise, the other man begins moving rapidly to obey him, though it might be out of shock as much as anything else—but before he can get fully into position, the Hollow has burst into a sprint that kicks up the sand in a fifteen-foot shower, and Sasaki falls back with a splutter, wiping furiously at his face. Ichigo spits out a curse and sweeps Zangetsu into a block just in time to meet the downswinging forearm of the Hollow.

Skin and muscle give easily under his blade, but the Hollow seems to barely notice the pain; instead, it locks its free hand around the injured arm and leans all its heavy weight on the limb, trying to force Ichigo's knees to buckle into the sand. He sets his teeth and braces himself, feeling the muscles screaming in his wounded back—he would have fallen already had it been a week ago, and even now he feels his thighs trembling under the strain. But there is movement out of the corner of his eye—he doesn't dare spare a full glance, considering that is how he'd defeated the first Huge Hollow—but the unfocused orangey-brown blob on top of the moving figure tells him it's Sasaki, scooping up his zanpakutou and dashing out of sight behind the looming Hollow.

Sweat drips into Ichigo's eyelashes and he blinks rapidly—and then he notices the Hollow is wearing a makeshift collar. From his vantage point, he can see it clearly; a thin leather thong winds itself around the Hollow's neck and between its forelegs, and set dead center in a broad iron plate is an unpolished hunk of grayish white stone the size of his fist. Then the Hollow, taking advantage of Ichigo's distraction, shifts even more of its weight onto its arms, and Ichigo forgets everything in his fight to stay upright long enough for Sasaki to attack.

For agonizing seconds a silence lingers under the creak of Ichigo's joints, and then with a drawn-out shout truly worthy of the Eleventh, the other man springs onto the Hollow's shoulders and stabs his V-shaped sword viciously through both the weasel's eyes. The thing lets out a violent scream, and as Sasaki tumbles off its back, it vanishes in a cloud of acrid dust that sets their noses burning. Ichigo meets his fellow student's eyes in the second's reprieve, and in a moment of silent and mutual consent, all irrelevant questions are postponed in favor of slaughtering the remaining Hollows, and the two of them speed full-tilt towards the beleaguered students. Ichigo glances at the ground where the Hollow had vanished as the dust settles and sees something glint in the sand—the stone and collar, he realizes, but there is no time to dwell on it now and he files the information in the back of his head.

The next two Huge Hollow fall swiftly to their element of surprise, but another pair of students have fallen injured or dead during Ichigo's fight, and he leaves Sasaki to a clumsy triage as he darts like quicksilver between the tree-trunk-like legs of a mammoth Hollow to deal the death blow from below its jowls. _Three left_, Zangetsu informs him, and Ichigo swivels on the spot, numbers racing through his head. They'd started out with ten Hollows and seven students, including him and Sasaki; two students had fallen before he'd even gotten there, and two just now, but if there were three Hollows left that meant—oh, _shit—_

And he spots the last of them, the three Huge Hollows, converging with fearsome intent on the final remaining student—Yoshino, he realizes with a groan, even as he digs his toes into the dirt and springs towards her. Something is wrong with her sword arm, the blade dangling too loosely from her hand, but the fire in her eyes is visible even at this distance.

"Come on!" he hears her shout, tinny and faint across the sands, and he ignores the pulsing pain in his wounded ribs to pour on more speed. "Come on, I'll take you all on!"

_Little idiot_, he seethes, squashing the flare of recognition he'd felt at her defiance in the face of insurmountable odds—the image of himself with a baseball bat flickers in his head—but there is no way he can reach her in time; the first Hollow is already there, already dropping its jaw impossibly open, and of course Yoshino isn't running—

_Zangetsu, _he begs, _Zangetsu _please—

_Do it, Ichigo._

And the power is there, swelling up in him so fast and hot it scalds, and Ichigo flings the tip of his sword towards the sky. _"Getsuga—" _he bellows, and the clouds rumble—

"_TENSHOU!_"

—and then they split above him in a thunderous roar as the blade swings down.

* * *

The last thought he manages, just before everything fades to black, is that that he figures this is how Rukia felt, saving his sorry ass so long ago.


	8. Marionette's Lullaby

**AN: **This is probably in my top two favorite chapters for this particular story. I hope you like it as much as I do.

**Soundtrack for this chapter: **_Hometown Glory_ by Adele. The link to the playlist is on my profile.

* * *

**Chapter Eight**

Marionette's Lullaby

_(inquieto)_

_

* * *

_

The problem, Rukia thinks, is that raw recruits fresh out of the Academy never admit to themselves that they might not be quite as invulnerable as they think.

Two of them are practicing right in front of her, fresh-faced and young—younger every year, it seems, and every year more reckless. They are unaware she is watching from her vantage point in the shadows of the division offices, so they pay little attention to their sword form, laughing and being careless with their zanpakutou and generally offending every sense of pride she has. And yet she doesn't move; instead, she leans against the building and watches them play at sparring.

The younger one has hardly any skill at the sword at all. Frankly, Rukia is surprised he has even managed to graduate considering how inexpertly he wields the blade; he swipes it at the taller one's head, missing it by at least a foot, and then he shrugs and steps back to speak to him, letting the tip of his zanpakutou trail unnoticed in the earth by his feet. The other is marginally better—at least, he seems aware enough of his weapon that it doesn't dangle in the _dirt—_but she can see even from where she stands that he is taking none of it seriously, and she suspects that his casual carelessness carries over into more than his practice sessions. The younger one laughs at something the other says, the tip of his sword moving haphazardly through the air to illustrate his point, and then they resume their pretend fight.

She crushes the stack of papers she carries against her side and her hand tenses on the hilt of Sode no Shirayuki at her waist, but her feet still do not move. The younger boy ducks a blow from his opponent, his arms swinging wide for balance; stupid, she thinks—his entire back is unprotected, and a single swipe from a Hollow could end his life. One death, just like that. And then two—the tall one drops a hand from his sword to wield it one-handed, but it is not a technique, it is _vanity, _his ego puffing before her eyes when he manages a lucky hit. The third death comes when the young one trips over his own feet; four, when the older one twists his wrist on an idiotic move and abandons his opponent to nurse it; and then it is five, then six, then ten and fifteen and twenty and by the time Rukia finally pulls away from the wall, nearly half an hour after she'd first stumbled across them, they have killed themselves over forty times.

She turns on her heel and strides inside the offices, the ringing laughter of dead men pressing on her ears.

* * *

Captain Ukitake catches her before she can retreat to the safety of her office and calls her in to see him. He tells her about the students' disastrous mission; she is concerned, of course, but Ichigo has been injured by Hollows before, and the Fourth is more than capable of treating him without her assistance. It is only when Ukitake informs her that once he awoke, Ichigo had refused treatment and disappeared in the infirmary's chaos that Rukia understands why she was summoned.

"You wish me to find him, sir," she confirms, and winces at the edge she can't quite keep out of her voice. She hopes Ukitake realizes it's directed at Ichigo, not him, but he smiles.

"Only because you would know where to look. There are others searching as well, but Captain Unohana was of the decided opinion that he should not have left the infirmary in such a rush."

Rukia winces again. Ichigo must have been unusually upset to ignore Unohana's advice, and after Ukitake briefs her on the students' conditions, she sets out to find the truant captain-in-waiting. As she leaves the offices, she fastens her vice-captain's badge to her sleeve, its weighty authority reassuring her. This is more than just the two of them—it is a soon-to-be-seated officer recklessly vanishing without notice and a vice-captain sent to retrieve him, and Rukia is resolved to remind him that there is more at stake here than his pride.

She hesitates for only a moment in Seireitei's streets, and then with a decisive movement, she turns east towards the city's outskirts.

* * *

She is still a half-league from her destination when she feels the first lick of Ichigo's reiatsu against hers. It is heavy and roiling, delicately laced along the edges with the rancid itch of his Hollow, but she is encouraged by the fact that she's guessed his location correctly. She steps into shunpo to cover the last distance in seconds, and then almost before she is ready, Rukia finds herself on the mountain's face, staring down the deceptively innocuous door that hides Urahara's training grounds of old. It had seemed logical to her he'd come here; although she's never been here herself, Ichigo and Renji have both told her about it and the healing pools it holds, and what better place could Ichigo choose to regain his bankai than in the mountain where he'd first found it?

Rukia has to brace herself to pry open the door set in the earth; it is heavier than she'd expected, but she eventually manages to get it cracked enough that she can slither through, and she has clambered halfway down the long ladder before she feels the quiver in Ichigo's reiatsu that tells her she has been noticed. Its undercurrents of Hollow make her uneasy, and as she finally drops from the last rung to the rocky ground, she brushes her hair out of her eyes and surveys the cavern.

The space is dimmer than she'd expected, Urahara's lighting mechanisms apparently wearing thin with age. The distant places in the cavern are practically drenched in darkness; it drips like oil from the ceiling to mask the tops of the stone pillars that tower over her, and Rukia suppresses her urge to light a kidou in her hand that will burn the black away.

She hears Ichigo call her name.

But he doesn't emerge, and the syllables of her name echo in the great emptiness, making it impossible to trace the bouncing sounds to their source. Worse, there is a hint of mocking to the tone that makes the hair on the back of her neck stand up. She has not heard that color in Ichigo's voice since his Hollow was sealed.

"_Rukia_," he calls again from the darkness, and she pulls her anger like a cloak over her fear.

"Come out here, Ichigo," she shouts in answer. After a heart-stopping second of silence, Ichigo laughs. It is a horrible sound, full of empty and vicious amusement, and it clatters off the echoes of her voice like the rapping of long bones against each other.

"_Ichigo_," she says again, angrily, as if it can slice through the impossible acoustics of this place that give life to the cacophonous noise long after it ought to have died.

But then Ichigo steps out from the shadow of one of those omnipresent stone pillars with the long slim daito of his bankai swinging loosely from his right hand, both of them in black and nearly indistinguishable from the darkness behind them, and Rukia feels only the briefest instant of relief that his face is still his own.

"I come when I'm called," he says, grinning, before he flickers out of her sight.

Then there is a whisper of weight against the junction of her neck and shoulder, and Rukia whips her head to the side to see the blunted edge of Ichigo's sword resting against her collarbone, insinuating itself just under the lip of her kosode.

"Tensa Zangetsu came out to play," Ichigo sing-songs into her other ear. His arm is draped over her shoulders in a mockery of an embrace, his sword on one side and his cheek brushing delicately against hers on the other; his breath is hot on the side of her face. Rukia doesn't want to look—is _afraid _to look, really—but her head slowly turns of its own volition as Ichigo whispers the name of his sword against her cheek, and her gut clenches to see him so close and so alien. Ichigo's left eye is bleeding black, and she wonders if that blackness can worm its way into her own eyes across the little distance between them.

Somehow she cannot move. She is gripped by an unreasonable and nameless fear that rockets the face of Kaien into her heart, as if moving will recall that horror and plunge Ichigo the rest of the way into the chasms in his soul, and that is why Rukia does nothing when the thing that is almost Ichigo drops his head at an unlikely angle and rests his chin in the curve of her neck. His skin is radiating heat.

He breathes in and then out, sending tendrils of her hair whirling away from his nose to stick to the sweat beading on her neck. He shifts his arm where it stretches out behind her and the blade moves in response, catching the dim rays of light that still beam from the open doorway high above them. This apparently amuses the almost-Ichigo, and he spends the next few moments playing with the light reflecting off his blade, letting it ricochet off the stone that surrounds them until it stretches across her cheeks, a wobbly stripe that sets her eyes burning, and at last Rukia finds release from her paralysis. As if her feet have suddenly been freed from shackles, she takes two unsteady steps forward and turns. The heavy weight of Tensa Zangetsu sighs gently against the cloth as it slips from her shoulder, but Ichigo makes no move to follow her. He simply straightens with his sword at his side, looking at her silently through an eye that gleams gold, and Rukia wonders if he can hear her heart breaking as she rests her hand on Shirayuki.

"Ichigo," she says again, and though there is pleading in her voice, it does not tremble under the peculiar piercing shine of his eyes. "Ichigo, _please,_" she says one last time, and his eyebrows furrow.

She draws her sword, and Ichigo vanishes from sight.

He reappears to her left and is gone again before she can turn. Then her right—no, behind her—now pressing against her shoulder—he is moving so quickly she can do nothing more than clench her fists and meet the sheen of gold before it blinks out of her vision.

Then abruptly, like the sudden sharp breaking of a sapling bent too far in a storm, he is there, right there in front of her, and the Hollow billows acridly over her senses until her eyes sting with tears. Every nerve ending in her body is screaming to her that the thing is a threat, that it is deadly beyond reason, and her last vestiges of hope are dying in the face of the creature before her. His eyes are dark and empty as they meet hers, his hair backlit by arrows of light that streak down from the still-open door above them in a perverse halo, his lips twisting into a smile that darts horror up her spine.

"Can Rukia-chan come out to play?" he asks, cocking his head, and his voice is the voice of the Hollow.

Rukia strikes him across the face with Shirayuki's hilt.

Ichigo flings a hand over his eyes and staggers back a step—and then somehow he falls, and Rukia gulps back an angry sob as she unhesitatingly presses her advantage. She is such an inferior swordsman to him that she _must _take this chance; to do otherwise would be ludicrously reckless—and she swings Sode no Shirayuki into place with the tip just above Ichigo's throat. They freeze like that for a second's eternity, Ichigo on his back with his hands covering his face still, the white blade nicking his throat just above the jugular. But he remains motionless, and Rukia finds herself soundlessly begging him to move, to attack, anything that will allow her to finish her strike in the heat of battle and not like _this_, not with him still and silent and helpless at the point of her sword, a common Hollow and not the man to whom she has entrusted her life.

Her options race through her head faster than she can articulate them; she can immobilize him, pin him to the ground and bind him with kidou—but he has escaped that before, and there is no guarantee that the binding will last long enough for her to summon the help that will imprison him; she can wait and gamble on the desperate chance that Ichigo will come out of it on his own; or she can kill him. It is the callous option on its face, but in this Rukia knows that there are some mercies that seem callous—still, it is a permanent, _permanent _thing, and Rukia also knows that there are some things impossible to survive twice.

She decides.

But just as her muscles tense, he chokes out a gasp through his fingers that stills her sword without her conscious permission. And then he does it again, a horrible choking sound that is more a collection of the syllables _Ru _and _ki _and _a _than a name with meaning behind it, but it had been _Ichigo's _voice and not the Hollow's—her dropped sword clatters against the stone and Rukia falls to her knees beside him in a sudden hope that is as painful as her fear. She grasps for his hands against his face because she doesn't know what else to do and his fingers scrabble for her touch; both their skins are slick with sweat and terror, and their hands slip clumsily against each other before he manages to clasp them, but when he finally does, he holds her fingers tight against his forehead and closed eyes, as if she is the only tether he has to his sanity.

"Don't leave," he begs against her wrists in a jerky whisper that seems to tear his throat as it escapes him, and Rukia can't speak, can barely breathe around the aching lump in her throat, so she simply clenches her hands around his until the knuckles throb with every heartbeat, silent but _there _as Ichigo wars with his demons.

A decade seems to slip by in the minutes that follow. Ichigo is sweating profusely against her hands, eyes closed and twitching, and Rukia is little better. Then he lets out a groan, long and slow, and as if he must command them one by one, the muscles in his legs and back and hands relax against her. Rukia's fingers are white and bloodless as she slowly releases Ichigo's own, and then she cups his face in her palms because she cannot yet let go.

His eyes slide open, brown and bloodshot and exhausted. Rukia wants to weep in relief.

"Ichigo," she names him instead, because he is Ichigo only, not the thing that lives inside him, and his eyes smile ever-so-slightly at the corners.

"I'm sorry," he says, his hands sliding to her wrists. "I'm sorry, Rukia."

He looks so tired and pale under her hands, except for the angry red edges of the bruise that is blooming on his jaw from where she struck him. Rukia strokes it once with the pad of her thumb, and then, the muscles in her back like rubber from the sudden release of tension, she bends over in a rustle of cloth to rest her forehead against his.

"I am as well," she whispers. His hair tickles against her eyebrows, and she can feel his pulse still racing staccato under her palms, and she closes her eyes to focus on this, just this, Ichigo alive and here and _with_ _her_.

Rukia leans against him, their breaths mingling between them, and _rests. _

_

* * *

_

A full ten minutes pass before Ichigo is able to stand, and even with Rukia supporting him, he is barely able to stagger his way to the healing pool. He is not wounded, not really, save the livid mark on his cheek, but the utter exhaustion prevents him from traveling more than these few steps even with assistance. Rukia leaves him lying bonelessly on the lip of the pool with his feet dangling in the water while she steps outside to send a message. She keeps it short: _Kurosaki Ichigo found, safe, recovering_ (even though only two of the three are technically true) and sends it off to her captain. By the time she returns, Ichigo's bankai coat has vanished and he has managed to pull himself into a sitting position, staring at a swallow's worth of water cupped in his hands. Zangetsu, in the broad blade of his shikai, is resting peaceably beside him.

"The water does you no good if you only look at it," Rukia informs him, and he glances at her with a guilty look in his eyes.

"Thought I might let it heal on its own," he mutters uncomfortably. "Like…a reminder, or something."

Of all the stupid—Rukia barely bites back her scathing retort. Instead, she brusquely plants a hand on the back of his neck and tips him halfway over to splash the water on his face herself, ignoring his muffled protests until the angry stripe on his jaw has faded to a muted pink. Ichigo touches it once and then looks away.

"There is enough weight on your shoulders without adding this guilt," she finally tells him, and though her voice is softer than she'd intended, it still carries weight. Ichigo looks at her sideways; she has told him Kaien's story, and he knows that she speaks from the knowledge of experience, but he also knows that that burden is not as easy to shrug off as she would have it. Still, there is a new resolve in Ichigo's eyes, and Rukia hopes that at least in this, he will accept her absolution.

"What'd you tell them?" he eventually asks, dipping his hands into the pool once more.

Rukia allows him to change the subject. "Only that you were found and are recovering." They are both quiet, looking at Ichigo's bare feet in the water, and that is when Rukia sees the blood spotting against the white of his kosode. "You're injured," she informs him, because it is entirely possible Ichigo has forgotten, and he blinks down at his side in something like surprise.

"One of the Huge Hollow," he says, sloughing off the sleeve to expose the three long scores on his ribs to the air. "Forgot that was the whole damn reason I came here in the first place."

Rukia shakes her head as he dribbles water over the wounds. "What happened? I have only heard a brief account from Captain Ukitake."

He gives her the story of the whole catastrophic mission over the next several minutes, starting from the boy-detective who'd known him, through the arrival of the Huge Hollow, all the way to his last-ditch desperation move of an untried Getsuga Tenshou. "Yoshino—" he suddenly remembers, eyes going wide, and Rukia puts up a hurried hand to forestall him.

"All the students survived," she says, cursing herself for her thoughtlessness at not mentioning it earlier. "Captain Unohana expects that they will all make a full recovery."

A naked relief etches itself on his face. "Good." The last of the gouges stitches itself back together and Ichigo shrugs back into his sleeve, but as he does so, a fist-sized hunk of grey rock falls from his uniform to the shore between them. Rukia barely rescues it before it bounces into the pool, and Ichigo lets out a chuff of anger that surprises her.

"I wanted to talk to you about that," he says. "I swung back by the plains and picked it up on my way back here to train for my bankai." The last words are spoken in self-directed resentment, but he bites it back and plucks the stone from her fingers.

She'd know that aching pull in her sleep. "Ichigo…that stone is made of Sekkiseki."

"I know," Ichigo snaps, but his anger is not directed at her. "Rukia, the Hollow were wearing these fucking things in collars around their necks to hide their reiatsu. Man-made collars."

Rukia feels a coldness worm its way into her stomach. _Impossible._

"Somebody sent those things on purpose," he says, and his eyes nearly glow with their raging.

* * *

Ichigo stays at the Kuchiki manor that night. He is too unsettled to face Sasaki and the other students in the dormitories at the moment, and more importantly, the conversation he's planning to have in his soul might very well be a dangerous one, and he doesn't want to put any more too-young first-years at risk. Rukia shows him to his room out of a persistent sense of propriety, and she _almost _lingers—he knows that neither of them will sleep much tonight—but instead she wishes him good night and retires to stare at her own room's silent ceiling.

Not even bothering with the futon, Ichigo slumps against the wall and slides into a sitting position, laying his sword before his feet. "Let's do this thing, old man," he mutters, and he drops his head against his knees.

* * *

He opens his eyes to the blue, blue skies of his soul. Superficially, it has not changed much since he was there last—the patch of grey still guards the Hollow, the skyscrapers still stretch out under his feet—but there are little things, little differences that tell Ichigo how dangerous the situation has become. A latticework of tiny fractures stretches across the glass, sparse here but rapidly multiplying the closer he gets to the binding grounds. He can see Zangetsu still standing over the prone figure, a silent sentry, but even at this distance his furrowed brow is visible.

By the time Ichigo has come within an arm's length of his Hollow, as close as he dares to the captains' bindings that still hold it, the window glass has splintered into a spiderweb beneath his feet that is more white than blue. It all radiates from the Hollow, as Ichigo had known it would, and beneath the body he can see that whole chunks of glass have fallen into the black emptiness beneath it. The chains that hold the Hollow are more than halfway gone; while there are short stretches of six or seven links still weighing down its ankles, only two whole, still-anchored lengths remain to drape heavily across its neck and back. Ichigo is just turning to face Zangetsu when the creature jolts—

His Hollow's eyes are open.

It takes Zangetsu's hand on his shoulder to quell his immediate rush of adrenaline, and that is when Ichigo sees that the Hollow has not yet moved. In fact, he realizes, it is not even _conscious—_there is none of the peculiar instinctive intelligence he has come to associate with it in its face. Its eyes are open, yes, but it is not awake.

Zangetsu anticipates his question and squeezes his shoulder. "The green thread, Ichigo."

In response, he half-lids his eyes and slips into his other sight, and he can immediately see what Zangetsu means. The little green thread has twisted past the crumbled links, through the metal that is still intact, twining its way around the Hollow's fingers and wrists and higher, up through the sleeves of the white shihakusho to emerge at his neck, coiling against the tendons of his throat and around his ears and finally—and this is the one that makes Ichigo's stomach flip—needling its way into the Hollow's mouth and nose and eyes, where it has wound around the eyelashes to hold the lids open.

Ichigo gags.

"It is being turned into a puppet," Zangetsu confirms, and Ichigo has to turn away from the Hollow's empty stare or vomit.

"How—" he manages, "who—" but Zangetsu shakes his head.

"I cannot tell. I had hoped that Sode no Shirayuki's wielder had uncovered a sign."

Ichigo can't unsee the little green knots cording from the Hollow's chest to his. "Nothing. She's found nothing."

Zangetsu is silent beside him, looking down at the threaded Hollow, while Ichigo practices breathing steadily.

Then a thought occurs to him with all its terrible implications. "Zangetsu—this afternoon—my bankai—"

"A test run," Zangetsu says, and a shudder crawls all the way down Ichigo's back. "The Hollow never awoke," his sword continues, more calmly than Ichigo can believe. "The strings tightened and he moved, but it was not of his own volition. Whoever controls the ends of the line used the advantage of your solitude and physical weakness to experiment with the limits of his control. The Hollow's power and instincts were stolen without its consciousness to subsume your own, and, Ichigo, I was entirely powerless to stop it," and now Ichigo hears the roughness in his voice. "I stood by and did nothing when this place was first invaded, and today I stood by and did nothing when my power was wrested from me against my will. I could only watch and hope you had the strength that I did not."

And now it is Zangetsu who turns away and Ichigo who looks at his back for a long moment. He knows this guilt. "I didn't have the strength either," he admits at last. "Rukia lent me hers."

"That shinigami girl," Zangetsu sighs in something that is neither exasperation nor fondness.

"Yeah," Ichigo agrees. The two lapse into a long silence that stretches across even the winds which occasionally gust against the buildings.

Eventually, his sword speaks. "Nevertheless, the link must be broken. The Hollow will wake if this erosion continues unchecked."

"What happens if it does?"

Zangetsu moves uneasily. "I do not know. It may break the cord by itself. Or it may strike out at you, or be corrupted by the puppetmaster, or it may consume us both as it attempted to do before."

"Sounds like they're all pretty shitty options."

"Indeed."

Ichigo flicks a finger delicately against the green thread where it protrudes from his chest, shuddering again at the slimy and unyielding repulsion. The Hollow twitches where it lays as if in response and Ichigo drops his hand. Zangetsu looks at him with impenetrable eyes, and just like that, Ichigo comes to a decision.

"I'm not going to just sit around waiting for this to fall apart," he says, and there is an authority in his voice that surprises even him.

"No," agrees Zangetsu. Ichigo wonders how long he has waited for him to come to this realization. But then he offers the crinkling at the corners of his eyes that is his version of a smile, and Ichigo's shoulders ease in response. Sure, shit might be about to go down. At least his sword is on his side.

"Let's do this thing, old man," Ichigo says again, and this time, he means it.


	9. Sincere Caesura

**AN:** My apologies for the slight delay, but there is a reason I wanted to get this chapter as perfect as possible. :)

**Soundtrack for this chapter:** _Leliana's Song_ from the Dragon Age: Origins soundtrack. The link to the playlist is, unsurprisingly, still on my profile.

* * *

**Chapter Nine**

Sincere Caesura

_(uguale, teneramente)_

_

* * *

_

For all that Ichigo had been gung-ho for action after his last conversation in his soul, he has entirely forgotten how tedious Soul Society's red tape could be.

It takes three days to get clearance for the high-security sections of the library—they don't want just anyone to be able to research the mechanics of soul invasion, go figure—and another two to catch Renji long enough to tell him of the attack on the students in the desert. Renji is understandably _pissed as hell_, but Ichigo doesn't have the time between classes and meetings to explain more fully; instead, Renji agrees to meet him in the library that night for the full story, and Ichigo makes his way back to the Academy.

Here, at least, the rumors are tolerably under control. Sasaki only comes to blows once, with a guy who taunts him about endangering the first-years, and the sling the man wears for the next week warns the rest of the students off the subject in open conversation. Still, the whispers linger, as they are wont to do, and Ichigo feels the eyes on him in the hallways. At least the kid-detective has kept his word about his ties to Aizen and the war; as a result, he is famous here only for the salvaging of the mission, a quick fifteen minutes of fame that Ichigo can hardly wait to see end. Edogawa gives him one piercing look in his first class back and a subtle acknowledgement in the day's lecture; otherwise, his professors generally continue ignoring him.

Sasaki and Yoshino broach the topic with him only once after class. Ichigo doesn't have much to say. They have figured out the connection, as he'd expected—Yoshino is certainly too intelligent to see his Getsuga Tenshou first hand and not put the pieces together, and Sasaki had felt the full force of a reiatsu that most definitely did not belong to a feckless first-year. He confirms their suspicions, and they, in turn, promise to keep it quiet for him as best they can. There is not a space left around the knowledge for friendship to fit, almost-graduates to almost-captain, so the three settle for a mutual respect, and that is that. They move on.

All the same, Ichigo finds himself stretched too thin between responsibilities and research—he is _distracted, _and that is why, that night, as he rounds a dimly-lit corner deep in the library's stacks, he has no defense against the hand that fists in his collar and slams him against the shelves. It takes a second that is entirely too long before his defensive instincts kick in, and by that point there is no sense in retaliation, because it is Renji's furious eyes that glare at him in the lamplight.

"You _fucker_," he hisses, and Ichigo can practically hear the tendons in his wrist creak. "I knew you were dealing with a ton of crap, but you sure as shit didn't tell me you went _Hollow _on _Rukia." _

One of the books on the shelf behind his head is digging its corner into Ichigo's scalp. "I was going to tell you tonight," he says, but even though it is the truth, it sounds feeble to both of them.

"You waited five _fucking days," _Renji snaps, loud enough that it stills the other students' chatter within several aisles. "You and Rukia are—" He cuts himself off with a sharp breath and then hisses, "That's not good enough."

_He and Rukia are—_what? "I'll tell you now, if you let go."

Renji's other hand tenses against his side and Ichigo sees him fighting the urge to punch him across the face, but after a moment, he releases Ichigo's collar to cross his arms. The strain still lingers in the air between them, taut and angry, and without testing Renji's patience any further, Ichigo gives him the whole story. It takes only a few minutes to recount the events of the students' expedition and his subsequent disastrous bankai training, but at least by the end of it, Ichigo is relieved to see Renji looking less angry.

"You should have told me sooner," Renji says almost calmly, although his neck is still corded with stress.

"You're right," Ichigo replies, because he is, and Renji appears mollified. Still, he paces two or three steps in a tight circle before he faces Ichigo again with a glare that tells him he is not entirely off the hook.

"Any ideas on the fuckstain behind this?" he asks after a moment's pause, and Ichigo shakes his head.

"Rukia and I have been looking," he says, gesturing at the chest-high stacks of books that are scattered between lamps on the table behind Renji. "Figured if we could figure out _how _he did it, it might give us clues as to who'd at least have the capabilities."

Renji picks up the top book from the nearest stack, a thick leather-bound volume with musty vellum pages, and lets it fall open midway in a cloud of dust. His fingers tense once against the cover, and then they relax. "You need any help?" he asks, turning a page without looking at him, and Ichigo knows that this is his offering of peace.

He also knows that Renji's strengths are not in the shelves that surround them. "I need a favor."

Renji looks at him then, closing the book in a cloud of dust and replacing it on the stack. "Yeah?"

Ichigo swallows, because he knows that this is a desperately selfish thing to ask, but in this matter he is desperately selfish, and so he asks it anyway. "If I go Hollow again, if this thing wins and gets control of me, and if it looks like I'm going to go after somebody—Rukia—"

His eyes narrow, and Ichigo knows he knows—

"—then I want you to take me out."

Renji purses his lips in a soundless whistle. "You really don't do things by halves, Kurosaki."

"I wouldn't ask anybody else," he replies, and he can see that Renji knows that this is his apology in return, both for the delay and the request.

There is a long silence between the two. Ichigo can hear three or four shinigami resume chatting quietly a few aisles over, and every now and then a student in red and white comes by with her arms full of books to reshelve. The life around them is flowing on, but here in this space that is the two of them, it feels as if time itself has stopped as Renji contemplates his answer.

Then he shrugs and the bubble pops. "Fine," he exhales, as time starts flowing again, and then he hesitates. But Ichigo doesn't speak, doesn't move—something tells him this is a vitally important moment, a thing that should not be interrupted, and so he waits for him to continue.

And he does, with a look in his eyes that tells Ichigo _listen up, idiot, there's something here you'd better fucking understand._ "But I don't give one tin shit about the favor. I'm doing this 'cause I want to, got it? You and me—and Rukia—we've been through too many brawls together for one of us to back away from the others now. I'll get your back on this one, because of that, but I don't want to hear you ask me a question like this again."

And Ichigo hears what Renji is telling him, the words that slip just underneath: _I don't want to hear you ask this again because you don't have to ask for favors from family, you asshole, _and he is stunned by the weight that lifts off, by the burden that is spread across more shoulders than his own.

"I hear you," Ichigo responds, because he does, and Renji gives him that cocky grin that makes him want to punch his teeth out. Instead he restrains himself to a scowl—his chest is peculiarly tight, anyway, might interfere with the swing at his jaw—and picks up the book that Renji had discarded earlier.

"Good," Renji says, traces of the grin still on his face. Ichigo is still frowning at the closed volume in his hands as Renji turns to leave.

But then— "Renji," he calls after him abruptly, because there needs to be a goodbye to this, a proper one, "See you around, yeah?"

"Yeah, soon," he answers, not bothering to turn around as he raises a hand in a lazy wave, and then he turns a corner to disappear out of the stacks.

_Asshole, _Ichigo thinks, but he is almost smiling as he opens the book to page one.

* * *

"I owe you an apology."

Ichigo pauses, his skewer of dango halfway to his mouth. He throws Rukia a sideways glance where she walks next to him, but she is looking straight ahead, and he can't read the side of her face in the muted blue shadows of the evening. "Unlikely," he says at length, and he pops another dango into his mouth.

Rukia shakes her head. "Yesterday, I told Renji of the events in Urahara's training grounds—I did not know you hadn't yet told him the whole story. Your confrontation last night would not have happened if I had kept silent."

The pair walks on, heels tapping quietly against the brick of the streets. They are both in black shinigami uniform tonight, the first time since Ichigo's death, and the dimness of the night seems to curl around their edges. Then Ichigo shrugs and takes another bite. "Don't think it would've mattered," he says around the dango. "He'd've been pissed no matter who told him."

"I should not have spoken so freely of your Hollow without your permission," she insists.

Ichigo waves his skewer in a dismissal of the apology, and his last dango nearly slides off the end before he rescues it with two fingers. Rukia declines when he offers it to her, so he eats it and flicks the empty skewer into the bushes.

"Listen," he says as he swallows the last bite, "if it's my permission that'll make you feel better, here, it's given. If you need to talk to Renji about—_it_, that's cool. It's easier when he's in the loop anyway."

Rukia nods, although her worries are clearly not entirely assuaged, and the two of them turn down the narrow, tree-lined avenue that leads to the Kuchiki manor. "How did your meeting go today?"

Ichigo's hand goes to his neck absently. That morning, Ukitake had facilitated his first meeting with the current third-seat of the Fifth Division, a slender, unhappy-looking man with tired eyes. He'd had far too much responsibility put on his shoulders too soon, and he had seemed almost unreasonably relieved that Ichigo would shortly assume command. "It went okay, I guess," Ichigo says at last. "The guy's named Kawaguchi, seemed pretty stressed. Nice, though. Shouldn't be too hard to work with."

He doesn't want to talk about the part that happened after that—he doesn't even really want to think about it. But he knows Rukia can sense his reluctance, that she'll respect his decision to speak or be silent, whichever it is, and in the end, that is why he tells her.

"He gave me a tour of the captain's quarters," Ichigo admits, and it is only Rukia's hand on his wrist that keeps him from his anger at the memory. "The fucking place still _smelled_ like Aizen, Rukia. God, I walked in that room—I was lucky not to throw up all over the guy."

"You are not that weak." She twines her fingers through his.

Ichigo drags his free hand across his face. "Yeah, well. I wanted to be. Almost tore the door off, I was in such a hurry to get out of there."

His fingers clench around hers, and without any apparent cue, they both slow to a stop. The Kuchiki manor has slipped into sight, rising elegantly from the earth just across the little bridge that still lies a hundred paces away. One of the permanently-blooming cherry trees that dot the grounds stretches up and over the path where they stand, its branches fracturing the moonlight into narrow shafts that stream down their hair and cheeks and shoulders, dappling them silver. A nightingale warbles briefly overhead.

The moment changes, now, from the anger that bristled beneath it before. Now it is something quiet and sacrosanct, a thing where anger has no place, and Ichigo is almost lost in the emptiness his fury leaves as it drains away. "Rukia," he murmurs, because to speak louder would break this apart, "why does it feel like the war never ended?" His head tips forward, just enough that a beam of moonlight catches him across the jaw, and he can feel the muscles in it jumping.

Rukia reaches up her free hand and smoothes her thumb across his cheek in an echo of her movements from the training grounds, stroking away the strain with her hands where her words cannot. Ichigo's eyes fall closed for an aching moment, and when he opens them again and looks at her, there is something new and dark in her eyes that was not there before.

"Rukia," he says again, but this time it is for an entirely different reason, and he wonders if she can feel his heartbeat racing. The hand that still holds hers rises of its own accord, and he finds himself pressing his palm against her cheek in a mimicry of her own hand. She is so small—_so_ small—his hand nearly swallows her up, the violent tendons stretching to his knuckles in a harsh and bitter contrast to her slender fingers, which have slipped to rest against his wrist. But her eyes are strong as she meets his gaze, and he wonders that he is still amazed by that strength. The branches shift in a breeze above them, and the moonlight spreads across her face as if it knows her, alighting on an expectancy and a hope and a _trust_ that scores into him, all the way through to the thing that defines the depths of his soul, the part that has, without his noticing, irrevocably opened a slender space that matches the bare and brilliant bird-angles that are Rukia without any gaps, an awkward and perfect fit, like coming home.

He bends his head and kisses her.

It is a fragile kiss at first, born of a moment too easily shattered, but then her cool fingers slip across the skin under his ear to press his head closer, and Ichigo slides his own hand into the hair at the nape of her neck to anchor himself in the heady rush that is kissing Rukia. He pulls back to breathe for just a moment and her eyes blink open languorously, and the gaze she gives him sends him searching for her lips again, because how could he _not_ with eyes that smiled at him so deeply?

Eventually, she breaks away; while they are not breathing heavily, they are both certainly flushed. Rukia drops a playful kiss on his chin, and then she wraps an arm around his waist and leans into him, pressing an ear against his chest. Ichigo leaves his hand where it still rests against her neck; he can feel his heart still thumping against his ribs, and he somehow knows that this is what she is listening to.

They stand like this for a moment that lingers under the cherry tree. The fingers of moonlight that reach between the branches slowly inch over their figures as the minutes pass, but Ichigo is content to simply stand there, unmoving, feeling his heart beat under Rukia's ear, until at last he feels her smile against his chest.

"Ichigo," she whispers against him, and he moves his thumb against her neck.

"Yeah?"

"You taste like dango," she says, and he can hear the barely-repressed amusement in her voice.

He chuffs a laugh that brushes a few strands of her hair out of place. "And you are too damn short."

She thumps him gently on the chest, but neither of them is eager to disturb the delicate peace that they've somehow scraped together in this world, and when they finally surrender to the seconds that are slipping by and pull apart, Ichigo kisses her once more, just because he can.

"So," Rukia murmurs. A quiet breeze stirs, rustling the branches above them, shafts of moonlight rippling over their shadowed figures.

_He and Rukia are—_but her eyes are shining as she looks up at him, and Ichigo forgets the thought to grin at her. "So."

She places her fingertips on his chest, just below his collarbone, just where the hole his Hollow birthed once gaped open, and then she flattens her hand across the space until it is covered. "Yes," she says, and she smiles.

* * *

Ichigo stretches his arms over his head as class ends, feeling the muscles loosen in his back. The mid-afternoon sun is pouring in through the windows, staining the wooden desks a warm brown-gold and catching like white fire in the depths of the little glass globes that dot their surfaces. He knocks his own globe back into its slot with a lazy knuckle, then stands and glances out the window towards the gates. Edogawa has held them overlong, but he sees no hint of black shihakusho among the sea of red and blue student uniforms. _Good_, he thinks; there's still time. The quiet conversations of the other students wash over him in a comforting buzz as he scrubs a hand carelessly through his hair and heads for the hallway.

"Hey, Kurosaki!" He glances back to see Sasaki jogging after him, and the two men fall into step together as they emerge from the dimness of the building into the sunny afternoon. "Listen," Sasaki says without preamble, "you up for a good fight? They're having another tournament tonight in the 64th, west district—no zanpakutou, just fists, but Yoshino and I are going. You should come too, kick some ass."

Ichigo shakes his head, putting up a hand to stop him as they turn towards the front gates of the Academy. "Can't, sorry. I've got plans already."

Sasaki rolls his eyes. "Come on, can't you get out of it? You've been running out right after class for a week now; you need to relax and beat the hell out of someone. There's a cash prize and everything, and some of those guys—"

"Not interested."

"_Fine_, dammit." He huffs a sigh, his dyed hair practically glowing in the sunlight, and crosses his arms. "I hope your plans are _important."_

"They are," he says, distracted. The sun looks a little further down the sky than it should, and Ichigo suddenly wishes he had a watch.

"Shit. You're meeting a girl."

Ichigo falters in his steps, startled by Sasaki's sudden insight, and a girl in a red-trimmed uniform runs into his back. "Watch it," she snaps as she dodges around him, and Ichigo jerks into movement again.

"Sorry," he mutters, but Sasaki's smirk makes his ears burn.

"Sasaki?" comes a new voice, and Ichigo curses his luck as Yoshino, dark hair pulled back from her face, emerges from the crush of students to join them. "Oh, hey, Kurosaki. You coming tonight?"

"He can't," says Sasaki, thick eyebrows waggling. "He's meeting a _girl."_

"Oh, yeah?" Yoshino says with interest. "I didn't know you had a girlfriend."

"She's not my _girlfriend,"_ Ichigo says automatically, then wishes he hadn't. "She's my—" Yoshino looks at him expectantly, but Ichigo hesitates, groping for the right word. _Girlfriend _is definitely wrong for Rukia, and Ichigo isn't boyfriend material—besides, it doesn't feel right somehow in his mouth, too light and too flippant for what they have pieced together between them. _Date _is wrong for the same reasons, but _partner _is too impersonal—Yoshino quirks an eyebrow at him and he tries again, though he can't believe he's having this conversation. "She's—"

"Ichigo!" There's a flash of black in his peripheral vision and he sighs—and then Rukia is standing before them, the sleeves of her shihakusho fluttering at her elbows and her eyes lit with exasperation. She is an island of black in the sea of white uniforms, and her lieutenant badge attracts no few glances from the curious students. "You are _late."_

"Rukia—" Ichigo starts, but she cuts him off with a sharp finger to his chest.

"You told me two o'clock—"

"I said _probably _two—"

"—and it is almost half-past and I have _work _to do—"

He bats her hand away, snorting. "Oh, come on. Ukitake-san told me himself he'd given you the afternoon off."

Her nose turns up, but he can see a hint of color on her cheeks. "My captain has been taking too much on himself lately."

"Just admit it, you're just mad you had to wait—"

Her elbow darts toward his side but he bends out of the way just in time, and that is when Ichigo notices Sasaki and Yoshino, both watching them with avid interest and evident amusement. He hesitates a moment, embarrassed—and Rukia's elbow jabs into his kidney.

Ichigo doubles over. "Ow," he says, and Rukia beams.

"Your father taught me that," she tells him, and then she turns to Sasaki and Yoshino. "You must be Ichigo's classmates."

They snap to attention—he forgets, sometimes, that Rukia's badge has more weight than just wood and cloth—and in a respectful voice he barely recognizes, Sasaki introduces himself and Yoshino.

Ichigo straightens as she inclines her head. "Kuchiki Rukia," she says with her brother's gravity.

Sasaki and Yoshino both straighten even further; he rolls his eyes. "Byakuya is a bad influence on you," he grumbles, and dodges the kick she aims at his ankle. The students crowded around them murmur in surprise and he abruptly remembers their audience—and Ichigo is suddenly ready to be _gone._

Rukia seems not to notice the crowd at all. "Nii-sama—" she starts hotly, but Ichigo seizes her hand and her eyes fly to his, startled.

"Let's go, Rukia," he says, argument forgotten.

She looks up at him for a moment, and then her face softens, hand curling around his. "All right." 

Sasaki purses his lips in a soundless whistle as they swiftly disappear into the throng of students. "Kurosaki and the 13th's vice-captain, huh," he says to no one in particular. "Wonder how _that _happened."

"Girl meets boy isn't that complicated," Yoshino remarks beside him. "Sometimes one meeting is all it takes." Sasaki glances over at her, surprised, and she smacks the back of his head. "Come on, stop gaping. Some guys from the second class bet me you'd go down in the first round, and I want to make sure my money's safe."

"Yeah, yeah," says Sasaki, slinging an arm over her shoulders, and after one last look behind him, they turn away.

* * *

The throng of students thins considerably once they've made it out the gates, and Rukia takes the lead, tugging him down the broad avenue that stretches along the Academy walls. Her free hand rests unobtrusively on Shirayuki's hilt; Ichigo brushes his fingers across Zangetsu in a reassuring touch of his own and then falls into step at Rukia's side. Neither of them is fond of crowds.

"So," says Ichigo as they reach the end of the avenue, "where are we heading?"

Rukia hesitates, then coughs into her hand. "I…have not quite decided yet."

"Haven't decided—then why were you so upset about waiting for me?"

"It is _rude_ to keep others waiting, Ichigo," she informs him primly, and Ichigo snorts. "Besides, it isn't as if…" She pauses again, and this time when she speaks, there is a low undercurrent of bitter frustration in her voice that slows his steps. "It isn't as if this—as if you—"

She falls silent, but Ichigo knows what she means. Most couples—_couple _isn't quite as bad as the others, he thinks distractedly, but there's still something too domestic about it—don't spend their free time tampering with bits of the other's soul. He laces his hands behind his head, trying for nonchalance. "So, what's on the agenda for today?"

"Two bindings and one offensive kidou." Her voice steadies as she speaks, and Ichigo is relieved to hear it. "It's a variation on a severing kidou, modified to do no physical harm."

"You hope," Ichigo mutters, but the sharp glance Rukia gives him tells him it hadn't been quiet enough. "Anyway, there's a little park around the corner. I think it's deserted around this time of day."

She nods, and a moment later they are turning into the park. It isn't large, with maybe a dozen trees scattered over a trim grass lawn, but they are indeed alone, and they are both grateful for the privacy. Rukia pulls a scroll from her sleeve and spreads it on the grass before her, studying the incantations carefully. Ichigo glances over her shoulder, but even with Kichida's kidou lessons he can make little sense of the drawings, and after a moment he pulls Zangetsu from his back and flops to the grass at Rukia's side to stare up through the leaves at the sky.

"Here," she says at last, pointing at the parchment. "And here. Adjusting the incantations here will target it only to the green thread and not to anything else in your soul."

Ichigo sits up to see her lips pursing at the paper. Rukia looks uncertain, he realizes, and he suddenly wants to clear that expression from her face. "Hey," he says, and though her eyes are slow to meet his, she eventually looks up. He means to say something comforting, he really does—but there is so much worry in the lines around her eyes, and fear in the creasing of her eyebrows, and before he knows quite what he's doing he has leaned forward, closing the little distance between them, and kisses her.

Her eyes go wide in surprise and he feels her stiffen—and then Rukia relaxes against him, her hand coming up to rest on his chest just above his collar. It is not a passionate kiss, nor is it especially prolonged; it is short and quiet and touched with the clumsy gentleness of two ungentle people, and her mouth moves against his only briefly before she draws back. Her lips curve in a smile as she looks at him, and Ichigo is glad to see the anxiety around her eyes smoothing away.

His fingertips brush against hers in the grass by his knee, and his voice is calm and strong. "It's fine, okay? You'll be fine."

"I am not the one I am worried about," Rukia says, her eyebrow quirking, but her smile steadies.

"All right, then," Ichigo says, and before his urge to linger becomes too strong, he abruptly stands in a rustle of cloth. "Let's try this." He backs away about fifteen steps to an open patch of grass and stops, setting one foot slightly behind the other to brace himself. Zangetsu he leaves resting safely at Rukia's side; he doesn't want to risk anything with this experiment. "Ready when you are."

Rukia nods, and then her dark head bows over the scroll spread over her lap. Her lips move quickly and confidently, though her voice is too low for him to hear the incantation, and then her head comes up as she raises her hands before her chest. Her elbows lock into place as she meets his gaze—he nods and she returns it in a brusque movement, fingers contorting into position after position between them. Her eyes are blazing blue as light begins to gather around her fingers—Ichigo braces himself anew on the grass as the hum of power grows loud enough to feel in his teeth—

Rukia shouts something and a brilliant burst of light explodes from her hands and rockets towards him—

He sets his teeth—the sound is screaming past him—the light hits his chest like a hammer—

And the next thing he knows, he is flat on his back, blinking up at the sky between the trees.

His ears are ringing in the aftershock of the blast, but he seems relatively unhurt. There's a pounding of feet on the grass near him and he feels more than hears his name being called; he forces himself to sit up, though he moves gingerly, and turns back towards Rukia, but she's looking back towards the park entrance and not towards him at all—

"Kurosaki-kun!" he hears again (not _Ichigo,_ he realizes), and he looks over to see a dark-haired girl of about fourteen in glasses and a red and white student's uniform waving at him. "Hi, Kurosaki-kun!"

"_Kimiko_," he groans, and drops his head against his knees.

She grins widely at him and starts fumbling with the gate; another girl also in a student uniform emerges from behind her, looking terribly embarrassed, and Ichigo recognizes the first-year girl who'd known who he was back in the sandy plains of the Huge Hollow attack.

Rukia stands, wobbling only once, and starts to make her way over to him, but—

"Zangetsu," Ichigo calls, and Rukia's eyes dart to his sword, still lying where he'd left it beside her. Ichigo sees her hesitate for an instant, and then she inclines her head toward his sword; he sees her mouth something, but he can't make it out—and then he realizes: she's asking Zangetsu's permission.

_Yes,_ says Zangetsu, an echo rumbling inside him, and she bends to take the hilt in her hand. Ichigo feels something _twinge _in his soul, something slipping into place like a harmony resolving—but before he can dwell on it, Rukia is already walking in his direction with Zangetsu held in both hands, throwing a glance behind her at the girls as they finally unlatch the gate.

"Friends of yours?" she asks, her voice dry. She leans Zangetsu against the tree behind Ichigo and tries to help him to his feet, but his legs are too rubbery to support him and he shakes his head to stop her. "The thread?" she adds in an undertone as Kimiko and her friend approach; he has only time for the briefest of glances into his soul, but what he sees is enough to make his heart sink.

He shakes his head again at Rukia—her lips compress in a frown—and Kimiko skids to a giddy stop in front of them."I thought it was you! I saw your hair and your sword—well, no one could miss your _sword." _Giggling, she pushes her glasses back up her nose. Rukia frowns, but the girl hardly notices as she drags her friend up beside her. "Mizuki-chan told me what you did. _And,_" she adds, putting a conspiratorial hand to her mouth, "who you _are."_

Splotches of color appear on the other girl's face, and she drops her eyes until her brown hair obscures them. "I'm sorry," she says in a tiny voice.

Ichigo sighs, silently resigning himself to the loss of his anonymity. "Don't worry about it."

She bobs her head, giving them a tentative smile, and then Kimiko lets out a gasp that startles them. Ichigo looks back at her, but she's staring over his head where his sword leans against the tree. "Oh, so that—that must be Zangetsu! That explains—oh, Mizuki-chan!" She looks like she wants to reach for his sword—he finds himself glad that Rukia has placed Zangetsu out of arm's reach—but settles for gripping her friend's arm in excitement. "That's why I felt that strong _attraction _back then!" Kimiko's eyes are glittering with unshed tears, and she puts a fervent hand over her heart. "It's a story of destiny!"

Mizuki grabs Kimiko's elbow and whispers something in her ear, distracting the girl for a moment from her starry-eyed adoration. Rukia lets out a peculiar breath beside him, and Ichigo glances up in concern to see her shoulders shaking—but her lips are twitching into a smile, and that is when he realizes she's _laughing_ at him. "Shut up, Rukia," he grumbles, and she laughs again.

"I had no idea you were such a man of destiny, Ichigo," she teases, dropping her closed fist gently on his head. It is the same hand she'd first touched Zangetsu with, he realizes, and the back of his neck tingles.

"Shut up," he repeats, but he makes no move to bat away her hand. His eyes meet hers and her smile almost slips; he feels her fingers start to unfurl against his hair, start to slide down to his temple—

And Kimiko gasps again, breaking the moment almost before it starts. "But that means _you—_you're—you can't be Kuchiki Rukia?"

Rukia's hand falls to her side as she turns her attention back to the girl and her friend. "Yes?"

Kimiko _squeals_, making Ichigo wince, and then she leaps forward and seizes both of Rukia's hands in her own. "Kuchiki-sama," she says gravely. Rukia leans back, astonished, but apparently can't come up with a way of dissuading her politely. "Tell me, wasn't it positively _romantic_?"

"Kimiko-chan!" says her friend, shocked.

Rukia's eyes fly to his, but Ichigo isn't going anywhere near this one; he offers her an innocent shrug and she glares at him. Kimiko tugs on her hands again before she can rescue herself, and Rukia shifts uncomfortably. "I…am not sure what you mean."

She manages to extract one of her hands, but Kimiko keeps a death grip on the other. Her friend seems to be warring between embarrassment and curiosity. "You know, Kuchiki-sama, when he rescued you! Up on the scaffold on Soukyoko Hill!"

Rukia goes very still. Ichigo feels as if cold water has been splashed in his face, and for a moment he thinks even the trees around them have frozen solid. Her friend looks uncertain; even Kimiko senses the change in the atmosphere, and she doesn't resist when Rukia pulls her hand away. Rukia's back straightens—she is the shortest one there, but in this moment she seems somehow to tower over them all—and then she turns to look back at him where he sits. Her face is pale—he remembers, suddenly, the way it looked that day, just as pale but her eyes awash in the light of the great and terrible flames, the flickering light glittering on the tear sliding down her cheek as he raced against the wind screaming in his ears, praying, _praying_—

Ichigo shakes his head sharply, and Rukia turns away. "No," she says shortly. "It was not."

A distant bell chimes, signaling the end of the hour, and the park slips back into life as the ringing echo dies away. Kimiko looks younger than ever as she steps back, pushing her glasses up her nose with nervous fingers. "I—I'm sorry," she whispers. Rukia smiles at her, but it is a heavy one with no comfort in it, and when her friend tugs on her arm, Kimiko allows herself to be pulled. "I'm sorry," she says again, and then she and her friend are gone.

As their white and red uniforms disappear through the gate, Ichigo looks up at Rukia. She has not moved, standing still and straight under the tree—and then he sees her shoulders shake in a breath.

He doesn't think she's laughing this time.

"Rukia," he says, and her eyes fall to his. She's not crying, he's relieved to see, but her breathing isn't quite even, and after a moment she drops ungracefully to sit beside him on the grass. One hand clenches in her lap; she presses the fingers of the other against her forehead as if warding off a headache. Ichigo says nothing—Rukia will talk when she is ready to—and before long, her breathing steadies.

Ichigo leans back on his hands and looks up through the leaves. Rukia sighs softly beside him, and then, as if she is too weary to hold it up, her head tips to rest against his shoulder. "I had forgotten," she says. Her voice is almost too low to hear. "How it felt."

His chest aches. "Yeah. Me too."

They sit like that for a long time. The sounds of the street are audible from where they sit; shinigami and students alike stroll past the gate, chattering and shouting back and forth to each other. A merchant haggles with his customer over his prices, and a little girl giggles in delight as she runs past them, chasing after a ball that bounces away from her.

Rukia lets out a breath and sits up. "I think," she says, her voice strengthening, "that that is enough self-pity for one day."

Ichigo snorts and flops to his back against the grass, lacing his fingers under his head. "If you say so."

"I do."

She smiles at him briefly, and for some reason he thinks of Sasaki's comment from earlier. _Girlfriend,_ he tries again, but it's still completely wrong. _Lover, partner, true companion—_none of them right, he thinks, they just don't _fit—_and so without thinking, he asks aloud, "Hey, Rukia, what are we?"

Rukia is lost in thought, looking back towards the gate, and that is the only reason she doesn't see his cheeks flush when he realizes what he has just asked aloud. He barely gets his arm flung casually over his face before she turns back to him. "What are we? You mean shinigami?"

"Never mind," Ichigo manages, but his voice gives him away—Rukia knows him far too well, and he feels her hip brush against his elbow as she shifts in realization.

"Oh," she says in a rather different voice. Ichigo slides his arm above his eyes, just enough to see her face below his sleeve. She is staring at the grass somewhere just left of his knee as she turns the thought over in her head—far too calmly, he thinks, though he is gratified to see faint color in her own cheeks. After a moment, though, it fades as Rukia brushes absently at the hair in her face and looks back to meet his eyes. "Does it matter?"

Ichigo blinks. _Does it matter—_he stares at her for a long moment, and then his arm falls back over his eyes as he snorts. "No," he says, and he laughs. "It doesn't at all."

He lays there a moment more, and then slim fingers tug at his wrist. His hand slides away from his eyes to reveal Rukia leaning over him, her eyes bright though her mouth is serious. "You are an idiot," she tells him, her hair brushing against his cheeks, and then her head dips toward him.

Her lips are cool against his, a welcome relief from the warmth of the day and the heat of his own stupidity, and he wraps his arm around her neck to draw her closer.

Of _course_ it doesn't matter. To name this fragile thing they've pieced together is to label it, and neither of them has ever been easily labeled. Theirs is a relationship of shouting matches and stolen moments in equal parts, a bond defying definition, and it is only now that he realizes that he wouldn't have it any other way.


	10. Aubade, Diminished

**AN: **I'm sorry for not being able to reply to your reviews; my grandmother passed away last week, and I just haven't had the time or the ability to sit down and go through them. However, I read every single one, and every single one of them is really appreciated. Thank you.

**Soundtrack for this chapter: **_Hello Alone _by Anberlin and _Transatlanticism _by Death Cab for Cutie.

* * *

**Chapter Ten**

Aubade, Diminished

_(doloroso)_

_

* * *

_

Between classes, their research at the library, and his new relationship with Rukia, a month slips by almost before Ichigo is aware of it. He and Rukia keep it private more by habit than conscious decision—it is no one else's business, after all, and they are both private people—though Renji guesses within the first week, and the inscrutable look he gives Ichigo tells him what he can expect if he screws up. Not that Renji would really be needed, Ichigo thinks dryly, since Rukia is more than capable of elucidating those points on her own.

Renji takes to dropping by the library occasionally—Ichigo has to explain to Rukia the concept of "cockblocking"—but after a few days, Ichigo senses real interest in the research on his part, and Renji's assistance actually ends up quite useful. He knows one of the librarians from his days at the Academy and once he explains what they're looking for, she drops by every once in a while to drop off books and papers she thinks could be helpful. And they _are_ making headway; they have uncovered repeated references to the whole idea of soul invasion, but they have yet to find anything with specific, detailed instructions that could give them a decent lead as to the person capable of it.

Halfway through September, Ichigo stops by the Thirteenth's headquarters. Rukia is not there—she's out on vice-captainly duties—but Ukitake is, and when he invites Ichigo in for tea, he can't find a polite way to refuse. Their cups are half-empty before Ukitake genially asks what's troubling him, and almost before he means to, Ichigo finds himself giving the captain a shortened version of his story. He leaves out his lapse of control in Urahara's training grounds, but he tells him of the green threading through his soul, of the cracked windowpanes, of the Hollow's chains eroding into dust. By the time he is finished, the tea is cold in the cups, although neither of them particularly cares. Ukitake's face is grave and worried, but he agrees with Zangetsu's assessment that to attempt another binding while his soul is still not entirely his own is too dangerous; all the same, Ichigo feels a weight lift from his chest—Ukitake's discretion is unquestioned, but more importantly, he knows that the captain is on his side.

Rukia slips in to drop off a stack of reports for her captain to sign and Ichigo stands to follow her from the room. He promises to keep Ukitake updated and, in response to Rukia's elbow, thanks him for the tea, and then the two set off for the heart of Seireitei.

They are meeting Renji at the library, but they are running late thanks to Ichigo's impromptu tête-à-tête, so Rukia insists they buy a half-dozen taiyaki as a peace offering. The cloth they are wrapped in is too thin, though, and Ichigo has to juggle the package from hand to another as they walk or suffer scalded fingers. Rukia is, of course, entirely unsympathetic, and it is only due to her ability to completely ignore Ichigo's discomfort that they manage to smuggle the fish-shaped cakes, hidden in Ichigo's sleeve, past the overworked receptionist and into the library at all.

Renji smells them before he sees them—his head pops around a pile of books heaped chest-high as they approach the table through the stacks. "You're late. I smell taiyaki."

Ichigo rescues the package from his sleeve with a wounded look and hands it over. "Nearly burned my arm off getting it here."

"Perhaps you are too delicate."

"Man, shut up, Rukia. I didn't see you offering to carry it."

Renji pulls the first fish-shaped cake from its paper wrapping and bites into it. "_Good,_ it's still hot."

"No shit," Ichigo grumbles as he and Rukia slide into empty chairs and pull books off the nearby stacks.

"Oh, listen—" Renji says suddenly, spewing crumbs over the open pages in front of him, and Rukia lets out an inarticulate protest that he entirely ignores. "Listen, I think I found something. Get this—I just had it, hang on—" Half the taiyaki still dangling from his mouth, he upends a stack of four books by his elbow and Rukia barely catches the top one as it slides off the table. He thumbs through a thick stack of manuscripts jammed between a six-hundred page volume on zanpakutou manifestation and an inexplicable treatise on metaphysical conceit before he finally yanks the bottom one from the stack. "Of course it was on the fucking—ugh. Anyway, look at this." He spreads the parchment across the table. It is incredibly old, faded and crackling around the edges, yellowed almost to the point of unreadability, but what Ichigo can discern is enough to make his stomach flip.

The rough, spidery sketch of a man, arms outstretched, reaches across the page, and although the ink has bled into the creases and in some places vanished entirely, it is still perfectly clear that the face of the man is covered by a smooth, featureless mask. Even fainter than those lines, so faint it is barely perceptible, lies a network of gossamer threads that scratches across the manuscript, and though they wend their way around the figure's hands and wrists and ankles and eyes in what appears to be aimless scrawls, Ichigo can see that every single thread culminates directly above the man's heart.

_This is it._

"It looks like there are instructions that are meant to go with this drawing," Rukia muses, examining the man's chest, and Ichigo sees she is right. There are tiny numbers, apparently references, dotted all over the figure, but there is no key that matches them. The margins are filled with annotations and handwritten notes in a narrow, spidery script that looks familiar to him, obviously added much more recently than the original drawings.

Renji remains silent while he and Rukia perused the parchment, and as they finish he leans back in his chair and folds his arms. "There's more to it," he says, and the somber sound of his voice gives Ichigo a terribly foreboding sensation. "This document was found with Aizen's personal files, Ichigo."

Rukia bites off a choked sound in her throat, and Renji continues mercilessly.

"I had to check. I knew it was a long shot, but my librarian friend told me some stuff had been brought in last year—and I had to try. The old woman who filed it all when it came in tried to give me some crap about it having been destroyed, but I knew there was no damn way they'd throw something like that out so fast. I ended up having to pull rank as a nominated captain to get her to even show me the room where they sealed it."

Ichigo shakes his head sharply. "No way Aizen's so careless. The bastard planned everything out, _everything. _He wouldn't have left this shit just lying around."

"Then he meant it to be found." Rukia's back is ramrod straight as she stares at the two of them. "He _meant _for someone to find it, and he meant for someone to use the information against you. _Ichigo," _she says, and her words trip over themselves in her haste, "even this—he planned _even this. _He left someone those instructions _intentionally_ for the express purpose of using them—against you, and against your Hollow. And they found it, obviously—look at the notations. This writing can't be more than a year old."

His stomach is boiling with dread. "I knew the war never fucking ended," Ichigo says bitterly, splaying his fingers against the parchment on the table. Rukia and Renji are silent. He can feel them watching him, waiting for his decision—it is _him, _it is _his _Hollow threatened here, so they are willing to yield, or at least listen—but he can't think of a damn thing to say, so he looks at his hand against the manuscript instead.

And that is when he sees it.

It is nestled in the corner, just in the curve of the inked figure's left foot. It is a small and simple sketch, easily lost in the spiderweb of lines that criss-cross around it—but that is the point; the lines skirt _around _it, all but one single thread, born at its center, birthing the thousand more that link to the heart of the man. And Ichigo knows exactly what it is.

It is a globe, clear as glass, a scaled-down version of the ones crafted by Shiba Kuukaku.

And that is when he recognizes the handwriting, the spidery signature of a name pulling to the forefront of his mind. Ichigo pulls his hand back very slowly and very precisely, as if a sudden movement might erase the thing from the flaking parchment. Renji, the books, even Rukia, everything fades entirely from his sight until he can see nothing but the handwriting around that globe, the size of his thumbnail, a simple ink drawing on the paper. His mind is rearranging itself to fit around this new truth—because he _knows _it is truth as surely as he knows his name. It is as if he has been looking at the surface of a colored glass all this time, trying to make sense of the senseless blurs on its face, and only now, only in this moment have his eyes looked _through_ the glass to see clearly what has been there all along.

"The papers came from the Academy," Ichigo says, and his voice is foreign in his own ears. He knows what Renji's response will be.

"Yeah. Some official found them when they were cleaning out their archives, thought they ought to be moved over to high security. What the hell have you figured out?"

Ichigo is suddenly very tired. "That is Edogawa's handwriting."

It takes Renji a moment, and then he swears, very softly and very violently. "The Academy exam?"

"The Academy exam," Ichigo confirms in a sigh.

"I do not understand," Rukia says, tense and low, and Ichigo tells her of the globe, the sense of wrongness he'd felt during the test, and the way the thing had exploded in his hands. He'd thought it had been simply poor control on his part, and he tells her this too. And then he tells her of the smile Edogawa Rampo had given him as he and Renji had left, and it is in the retelling that he realizes that it had not been the smile of a professor to a student, nor had it been the smile of one soldier to another; it had been the satisfied smile of an archer whose shot had gone home, the smile of a man who knew his prey had stepped blithely into his reach.

"God_dammit,_" Ichigo breathes, and that is the moment that his Hollow chooses to wake up.

_Yo, King._

It is only a brief flash of consciousness in the back of his mind, an oily pressure that pushes on his eyes with its familiar and mocking undercurrent—that in itself would normally be cause enough for alarm, but then Ichigo feels a sudden jerk on his breastbone as if it is trying to leap from his chest, and an entirely new wash of panic spreads over him—he doesn't know if it's his or the Hollow's, but it floods his mind all the same—Edogawa's hands are dipping into his soul—and he has forgotten his surroundings entirely until Rukia turns his head, her eyes cutting into his own. Her fingers are like ice against his face, but Ichigo can't tell if it is because he is sweating or because she has gone cold enough to burn; he focuses on the sensation all the same, anchoring himself in her steady hands, allowing her strength to frost through his feverish senses until he can breathe again. He wants to close his eyes and just _rest_ here like this forever, his sanity cupped in her palms, but his fear is still pulsing through him, and so he pulls her hands from his face and hopes she can feel his gratitude in the movement. She acquiesces and slips back into the chair she'd half-risen from; Renji is staring at him from across the table, and Ichigo opens his mouth to speak—

—and a blinding agony blossoms from his chest, a circle of fire that doubles him over the table with a gasp, the heel of his hand slamming against his sternum as if the pressure alone could dissipate the pain. He must have knocked over some books; they thud to the ground one-two-three by his feet and the pages stare up at him blankly—he hears Renji swear above him, hears Rukia's chair topple over with a clatter, but he can't think, can barely string two words together through the green-tinted haze, but he manages to grit out "Edogawa" and "puppet" and "Hollow," and as if the last had been the magic word to break the spell, a sudden relief almost painful itself in its abruptness sweeps over Ichigo and his Hollow.

There is no time to waste. "The Hollow's awake," he pants without preamble, sitting up with his hand pressed to his chest. He still can't breathe properly. "Listen, the thread, everything—everything, it's all Edogawa, all of it—he's trying to turn the Hollow into a puppet—_agh_—" And the second's reprieve ends as the pain springs up again, and to his utter dread he finds himself rising to his feet not of his own volition. He tries to lift a hand, a finger—he can barely blink, and that gives him a perfect view of Rukia and Renji staring up at him in naked horror. This is his worst nightmare brought to life, and if his breathing stops it is from fear alone.

_King—_

His Hollow's voice surges in him and is gone just as unexpectedly, but there had been an alien shock in it that fingers terror down his spine. His Hollow is as helpless as he is.

And that leaves only one person in control.

"Edogawa's holding the strings," he breathes, and then his feet jerk themselves into shunpo, and the world blurs out of sight.

* * *

There is a swirl of reiatsu that bloodies the air in front of her, and when she blinks, Ichigo is gone.

And then he bursts against their senses, outside now, and at a distance, but no less bloody, and even through the sheen of fear that lays over it, Rukia can sense his intent. This is the trail he is leaving them. She spares a single second for a glance at Renji—the understanding that blooms between them is one that is born from more than shared history—and without waiting an instant longer, they spring from the table.

A pinch-faced librarian tries to stop them, her reedy voice raised in protest at the chaos they've left in their wake; Renji nearly knocks her over as they barrel past. Ichigo's reiatsu flares again, this time fainter, and as the two of them crash through the library's doors into the afternoon's overcast skies, they simultaneously step into shunpo. To lose Ichigo's trail now is to lose him entirely.

"That bastard," Renji snarls between steps, and his rage boils over in his reiatsu before he can contain it.

"Not _now_, Renji," she reprimands him—their priority now is tracking Ichigo—but she cannot deny that her own heart blazes in answer.

They fall silent. There is nothing but the wind whistling in their ears, the swift _pops_ as they fall in and out of shunpo in an easy loping cadence that belies the urgency eating at their bellies. They have been traveling for maybe thirty seconds, but they have covered more than a quarter of the distance across Seireitei, and when Ichigo flares against the gate to West Rukongai, Rukia realizes where Ichigo is being pulled.

"Mount Koifushi," she understands—and she _understands, _because Edogawa has chosen a place meant to unsettle more than Ichigo, and this means he _knows them_—and Renji bites off a curse. Still, it is to their advantage that they know their destination, and Renji, who has always been weaker than her at shunpo, springs off at an angle to alert the nearest division. They have no time to catch a hell butterfly or craft a message in kidou, so they must do this the old-fashioned way—and before long, she can feel Renji leap forward again, and she slows only for a moment until he catches up.

"No good," he shouts to her over the wind whipping by. "Eighth's deserted, must be on a mission."

Or Edogawa had them cleared out, Rukia thinks, but aloud she shouts, "Then find Captain Ukitake!"

"No fucking way you're going in without backup!"

Damn the man for being right. "I'll send a message when we arrive, then," she returns, perhaps louder than she needs to be, and she draws her sword between steps.

Rukia sees Renji slant his eyes at her, but she has the better understanding of the danger they face if Ichigo can no longer control himself. "Dance, Sode no Shirayuki," she murmurs, and neither her voice nor her hands waver as the blade bleaches white.

She has pointed her sword at Ichigo before.

* * *

There is a cloud in Ichigo's head. It is grey and damp and heavy, and it's making it very hard to think. He sees the great gate to West Rukongai rise up in front of him as he steps under it, and something, something—but he can't seem to string two thoughts together in his head. Why is he running, anyway? But it's not so bad; it's been a while since he's really let loose like this, running at full shunpo, and if his feet seem to have a mind of their own, for the moment he simply enjoys the winds speeding through his hair as the houses and huts begin to give way to trees. There is a tiny thing niggling at the back of his mind—something he's supposed to be doing, maybe? But as he reaches for it, it slips away through the cloud in his head, and he subsides, allowing himself to be wrapped snugly in the fog. It'll come back if it's important, anyway, he thinks lazily, and before he realizes it, his feet take their first step up the path that winds up Mt. Koifushi.

And then a bitter ice strikes his mind, right where the niggling little thought is, and the shock of the coldness sweeps through the fog without resistance, and Ichigo wakes up. _Rukia's shikai,_ he realizes, his mind shaking off the lethargy like water, and when the insistent wildness of Renji's follows immediately afterwards, burning away the last vestiges of the damp greyness, he feels the iron band of Edogawa's grip slacken.

Ichigo plants his feet mid-step and stops. It is a battle—he can feel Edogawa trying to tighten the strings again, and he strains against it, calves quivering with the effort it takes to resist the pull. "I will _not_ be your puppet," he snarls at the air, and unbelievably, his feet stay still. He stands there, shaking, sweat beading on his forehead, but for a trembling moment, he is his own master. But he can feel the rush of shunpo building in his legs again and he bends almost double, pressing his hands against his knees as if that could persuade them to be still. He cannot do this alone. _Zangetsu, _he calls, and then because he is that desperate: _Hollow? _But his voice falls dead and flat and still, and there is no answering response. He doesn't know if it's a side effect of the cloud in his head or if Edogawa is manipulating the strings, but his soul is mute. He is on his own.

A bead of sweat drips onto the dirt under his feet. _Don't move, _he commands his legs silently, bending his entire will against Edogawa's. _Don't move! _ The unrelenting push in his legs suddenly drains away, and Ichigo is seized by a breathless hope.

And then he feels a yank so strong he hears his sternum crack. Pain radiates from his chest over his ribs and in the face of it his concentration shatters. His feet step forward again, two brief bursts of shunpo rocketing him halfway up the mountain, and he wants to scream—and then something _does_ scream in his soul, and in the instant before it is cut off he recognizes the voice of the Hollow. Edogawa must have sacrificed the enforced silence of his soul in favor of forcing him to move, because shortly after, he hears Zangetsu snap out _not enough, Ichigo!_ in a contagious urgency that bleeds into him—but he can do nothing, move nothing—the trees are whipping by in increased numbers until they become a solid green blur; his feet leap off the path and pound through the wild grasses until he suddenly bursts through a final ring of trees into a clearing at the edge of the mountain, and at last he stops, his muscles trembling in pain and exhaustion, almost sobbing for breath—

And across the clearing, bumbling and bald and peering at him through ridiculous round glasses, Edogawa Rampo's smile is almost warm.

* * *

Mt. Koifushi rises up before them, and without hesitating, Rukia darts for the path, Renji on her heels. They are both tired; while they are by no means powerless, they have stepped into shunpo more than sixty times between them, and that is no easy thing to shrug off. Still, Rukia can feel they are close. Ichigo has stopped at last somewhere above them and it is now only a matter of catching up to him—_them_, she reminds herself—but she cannot quell the pinpricks of anxious fear that Edogawa has pressed more than Ichigo's body under his thumb.

She throws a glance at Renji. His jaw is set and she can see the tendons tensing in his neck as he swallows, but his steps do not falter, and his eyes are steady as they meet hers.

"We're going to save him," she says then, unsure whether she tells Renji or herself.

"We'll do what we have to," Renji replies between steps, and there is a steel in his voice that braces her again.

She nods firmly and faces ahead once more, entirely missing the look, weighted and measured, that Renji gives her.

* * *

There is only the space for half a breath before Zangetsu is in his hands. "_Edogawa,"_ Ichigo spits, trying to hide his unrelenting shudders.

"Kurosaki Ichigo—and Hollow, I presume," he says pleasantly, and Ichigo lunges.

His feet have not even left the ground before he is leveled. He doesn't fall to his knees so much as they simply stop obeying him, as if Edogawa has simply severed their nerves and left him a paralytic. The agony is suffocating him, centered in his chest, and somewhere behind the green haze of pain he can again hear the Hollow scream.

Edogawa's clenched hands lower in front of him. "None of that, Kurosaki-san," he says politely. "We have to wait for your friends to arrive first."

Ichigo can't breathe properly through the pain pressing on his heart. "What—what do you—" but his chest seizes, and he can't finish.

Crouching in front of him, Edogawa allows his smile to drop, and Ichigo can suddenly see the man behind the professor, the one who is capable of this torture. He fists his left hand and then picks over the air above it with the fingers of his right, as if sorting through invisible threads, and eventually pinches a nothingness that he wraps around his palm. The pain abates and Ichigo sucks in a breath through clenched teeth, but his limbs are paralyzed and he cannot do anything more than seethe impotently. Edogawa reaches out, then, and places a friendly hand on Ichigo's shoulder, and for a crazed moment Ichigo thinks the man means to topple him over. But instead, he simply rests his hand there as if he is trying to convince himself of something, and then, coming to a decision, he drops it back to his side and stands up.

He reaches into a small bag at his waist and pulls out a syringe and a tiny vial. "I regret that it was you, Kurosaki-san," he says, looking down at him as he smoothly slides the needle into the vial's cap, and there is sincerity in his voice. "You were one of the most promising students I ever had."

* * *

There is a flare in Ichigo's reiatsu and the edge of fear in it bites at her. They are close, _so close, _it's only a matter of seconds, but Rukia worries—

* * *

"But that Hollow inside you, my dear boy, is a threat to this world, and to the world of the living, and I _cannot _allow you to survive and menace them both." The syringe fills with a clear liquid that glows green at the edges, and Ichigo recognizes the slick sickness that is wrapped in long and iron threads around his Hollow as Edogawa gently rests the tip of the needle just above Ichigo's heart—

* * *

"There!" Renji shouts, and Rukia can see the bright orange of Ichigo's hair through the trees. Her heart is racing—she pours on a final burst of speed—

* * *

Edogawa jams the needle through his skin and depresses the plunger—it burns like _fire _in his chest—

* * *

And the world goes silent as Renji and Rukia finally break into the clearing at Ichigo's back, as Edogawa with his empty syringe dangling from his fingers takes two smooth steps back from Ichigo still sitting on his heels, as the trees themselves go still in the breathless hush.

And then Ichigo's reiatsu explodes.

It billows over all three of them in a flooding, reeking swell of Hollow that nearly knocks Rukia over; she stumbles back a step until Renji braces her with the hand that holds Zabimaru, and a sapling to her right explodes under the pressure. There is a thunderous rumble growing underneath the waves rolling off Ichigo, but she can't tell if it's him or Edogawa or the mountain itself revolting against the atrocity that has been born on its face. She closes her eyes against the burning acidity, and the familiar and bitter tang of the trees and the Hollow mixes against her nose, and for a split-second, Rukia can't remember whose back she has been chasing. Then she hears Renji swear brutally as Zabimaru's hilt digs into her back, and she opens eyes that immediately water to see Ichigo convulse.

It is not a coordinated motion; it is as if the motor units are firing randomly in his arms and legs, sending them twitching in all directions in a grotesque parody of a marionette held by an inexpert puppeteer. Rukia takes a half-step forward, but she is stopped both by Renji's hand like iron on her arm and Edogawa putting up his own hand to stop her from the other side of Ichigo's body.

"Not yet, please," he says, maddeningly courteous, and he clenches both hands in front of him, one on top of the other. Ichigo's body freezes, the major seizures halted, but Rukia can still see the muscles tensing one after another, rippling across the back of his neck and down his forearms. "I will kill him right now if you insist on intervening."

Rukia watches the third finger on Ichigo's left hand bend itself backwards until it looks like it must break, and Edogawa correctly interprets her silence as acquiescence.

"I am sorry for the both of you as well," he continues as he lowers his hands, as if his student was not writhing mindlessly in the grass between them, and Rukia longs to put her sword through his throat. "But sacrifices are necessary when they are for the elimination of a thing that poses such a danger to us all."

Rukia knows it is idiotic to respond, knows her words will fall on deaf ears, knows that nothing she says could convince this man to free Ichigo and simply walk away. She snaps anyway. "Ichigo is _hardly _a threat."

Edogawa looks at her in a mixture of pity and condescension. "My dear girl," he says, and Ichigo lets out a muted, sustained groan that makes Rukia shudder. "You of all people know the thing that lives in him."

Rukia is barely paying any attention to the man. Ichigo has fallen forward to his elbows in an unconscious attempt to balance himself, and she is aching from the Hollow's stench and her utter inability to help him. His reiatsu buffets the three of them violently. Even Edogawa is not unfazed; Rukia can see sweat shining on his forehead, and she viciously hopes the man is suffering more than he lets on.

But when he continues speaking, he gives no sign of discomfort. "You of all people should agree with me, Kuchiki-san," he says, and an entirely new jolt trembles through her. "When the ones we care about are invaded by Hollow, is it not our duty to relieve them of their suffering?"

How dare he—how _dare _he? Her rage and grief twin themselves in their sudden surging, and Renji releases her arm as if he's been scalded. How _dare he_, in this place? Rukia takes one step forward, livid and _hurting_—her skin is tingling in disbelieving fury. "You will _be silent,"_ she snaps. She is so angry that she nearly loses herself to it, and only Shirayuki's hilt in her palm cools her swelling wrath into something controllable.

"I merely make a point." He holds up his hands placatingly, and Rukia clenches her sword so tightly her knuckles pop. "Whether or not you wish to admit it, Kurosaki-san is a danger to this world and all those in it. Were he simply human or simply shinigami, his power would be dangerous enough, but at least then he would have the mind to control it." His brows draw together in the first real emotion either of them has seen from him, and the muted fervor boiling beneath his words is that of a fanatic. "But that _boy,_" Edogawa continues, jabbing a finger in Ichigo's direction, "has a Hollow inside of him. His sanity is no longer his own—I have studied that Hollow, I have _felt _its power—do you know that if he lost control, that _thing_ could reduce Soul Society to ash?"

"His Hollow had been sealed by the captains!" Renji barks over her shoulder, and Edogawa snorts.

"The captains are a joke," he retorts, pacing a short distance towards them. "They, every one of them, were fooled by one of _my students. _I _taught_ Aizen Sousuke everything he knew about reiatsu and its manipulation, _me,_ and every single one of them fell for his illusions. They are _incompetent—_by the time I looked in that boy's soul, their bindings were already eroding away. Do you think they'd have held on the strength of your wishes and prayers? _No,_" he says, and he slashes his arm in a motion that bows Ichigo's back nearly in half before he falls to his elbows again. Rukia still can't see his face.

"If I sped the erosion of the chains that bound the Hollow," Edogawa says, voice level again, his mask of composure slipping smoothly back into place, "it was because it meant that I could control when and where the last bindings would be broken."

Impossible. He honestly thought Aizen learned his skill from him—and to loose the bindings _intentionally_—

"You are insane," Rukia breathes.

"I am _protecting_ Soul Society from everything he is!"

"You will _kill him!"_

"No," says Edogawa, and he smiles.

Suddenly, in an instant, every iota of reiatsu that Ichigo had exuded seems to suck itself back into his body in a screaming hiss that feels like sandpaper against Rukia's teeth. The sudden absence is worse than its presence.

There is a moment of terrible silence. Ichigo has gone completely still.

Rukia cannot breathe.

"He will kill _you._"

Ichigo stands up, and he turns, and his face is masked in bone.


	11. The Savage Cadenza

**AN: **And so we arrive at the last chapter. The epilogue will go up this weekend. Thanks for sticking with me, guys. :)

**Soundtrack for this chapter: **I know it's a cop-out, but I honestly couldn't decide between two, so you get a choice: either _Tears of the Saints _by Leeland or _Fin _by Anberlin. The link to listen online is, as always, on my profile.

* * *

**Chapter Eleven**

The Savage Cadenza

_(con bravura)_

* * *

Rukia doesn't waste her time on _no, please no_ and _this can't be happening. _Instead, she plants her feet in the dirt more steadily, raising Sode no Shirayuki in a defensive stance, and squares herself against the thing that was Ichigo.

He is still standing, Zangetsu dangling from his right hand. The mask is as white and leering as she remembers, dark stripes bleeding down and over the empty eye sockets and grinning teeth, and she can see no trace of the Ichigo she knows in its angular face. Then he lets out a pulse of power that whips her hair into her face, and when she can see clearly again, it is the black daito of his bankai, not his shikai, that he grips, and Rukia feels the first hints of a despair that is as familiar to her as her name; it is a thing that was first born here on this mountain, with Kaien, and she is beginning to believe that it will die here with her. Renji steps in front of her and she makes no protest; while she is more than capable as a soldier, Ichigo, with his bankai and full access to his Hollow powers, is an enemy she cannot stand against, and they both know it.

They also both know that in the end, Renji will not be able to stand against him either.

Ichigo cocks his head, a sudden jerk of a motion that points the blade-like horns jutting from his mask directly at the two of them, and both of them renew their grip on their swords in preparation for the attack—but it doesn't come. Instead, there is only a single sharp sniffing sound, as if he cannot see them properly, and Rukia realizes he is relying on his other senses to pinpoint their location. Shifting more of her weight to her toes, Rukia tries to ease some of the tension from her arms. She knows it will interfere with her swordsmanship, knows that a single misstep here will kill her—but just the same she knows that it is _Ichigo_, who stole her powers by accident, whose closet she slept in, who kissed her under her brother's trees—and she knows that even though it is the same as Kaien, it is unbearably different, too.

The clouds grow darker above them; another half-minute passes, and Ichigo does not move again—the waiting is beginning to eat at Rukia's sanity.

And then Edogawa, whom she had nearly forgotten, steps forward, his fingers splayed peculiarly in front of him, and Rukia shifts her target. Ichigo she might not be able to handle, but this man, this doughy, sweating, swordless thing, she can _destroy_.

"I apologize for the wait," he says, stopping just to Ichigo's left. "It took a moment more than I had expected for the threads to synchronize." And then he points the middle finger of his right hand straight down, and Ichigo's right arm snaps out in front of him, elbow almost hyperextended, and Tensa Zangetsu points directly between Renji's eyes. "It's not simply puppetry," Edogawa explains kindly. "The Hollow's instincts have been pulled out to cover his own and manage all the little details." He clenches both fists, and Ichigo leaps forward—

"I'm simply guiding them along."

And Ichigo's sword swings down to meet Renji's in a metallic _clang _that makes her ears ring, but she ignores it—she darts forward towards Edogawa in a step of shunpo and is _there, _within sword's reach. She starts the thrust, but a handsbreadth from his chest something long and black sweeps up from her knees and meets her sword—the impact nearly jars her teeth loose, stripping her of the ability to counter the strike properly, and before she can adjust her distribution of strength, Tensa Zangetsu is biting deep into her collarbone and Ichigo himself is standing between Rukia and her prey. She manages to get her other hand behind Shirayuki with just enough force to pry Ichigo's blade free, and springs back to just out of sword's reach. She hears Renji approach cautiously and stop a short distance behind her.

"Sorry," he says, for more than the wound. "Fucker got away from me."

"It doesn't matter." Probing the gash cautiously, Rukia winces; it has notched the bone and requires more skill than hers to repair—and then she catches herself and allows a humorless smile. "It does not matter," she says again, because the odds of them leaving alive negate her need for the Fourth. "I _will_ kill you," she adds conversationally to Edogawa, and he returns her smile.

"Kill the puppetmaster, free the puppet?" he asks with a short laugh. "My dear, I'm afraid it doesn't work that way. Every blank space in his head right now is telling him that you two are a terrible threat to him. Cutting the threads will not remove that impulse from his mind—I have made sure of it, since the last time you interfered set me back quite a bit, and I am not interested in another three weeks of gradually strengthening my hold again."

An angry breath hisses through Rukia's teeth. "It _was _you, back then, in the training grounds."

"Of course it was. After all that trouble I'd gone to arranging the Hollow attack on the students, he hadn't even bothered to die, and I'd thought all my plans had been laid to waste—and then he so obligingly took himself off to an secluded little hole in the ground, and suddenly an opportunity arose to test my control over the monster he keeps inside him."

"Your control?"

He allows his fingers to move in a little rippling motion, and a shudder winds its way over Ichigo's shoulders. "Kuchiki-san, are you certain that this is the best place to discuss this sort of thing?"

"You are an educator. Educate me."

Smiling thinly, the bald man gives her a nod in acknowledgement of a point scored. "You cannot wield a puppet without first laying the strings, my dear. One of my subordinates took advantage of an automobile accident in the real world to lay the building blocks, if you will, and she kindly kept an eye on him after that to inform me of any…opportunities that might arise to complete my duty. "

"You son of a _bitch," _Renji says, and the calmness in his voice tells her how angry he is. "You kept that page from Aizen's notes and studied it."

"I did. The page with the instructions for the thread-laying, far too intricate for me for me to rely only on an old man's memory. The globes we use for the entrance exam proved to be the perfect conduit."

"Then the Hollow attack was simply insurance," Rukia says, and she is surprised that her voice is so level. Thunder rolls in the distance.

He gives her a thin smile. "And it very nearly succeeded. The only flaw in _that_ plan was that sixth-year student's unremitting stupidity. It took nearly a week of me hinting to that idiot that he should take out the first years to see Hollows before the idea sank through his wooden skull, and by then, Kurosaki-san's strength had massed enough that he was able to survive. I'd even grafted Sekkiseki stones into collars to mask the Hollows in their attack," he adds, and in his voice there is genuine disappointment at his failure.

Renji speaks, then, but he does not have Rukia's control, and his voice splinters out of him. "Why didn't you just _stab_ him, then, when he was in your class and _trusting you? _It would have been a damn sight easier than this fucking circus!"

"Think it through, Abarai-kun," Edogawa coaxes. "Even assuming I could catch him off guard, I kill him—and then what? I am arrested for murdering Soul Society's shining savior? Impossible. I have important work still to do, research that cannot be done by anyone else, and the Academy needs my talents _there, _not wasting away in a squalid little jail cell. However," he adds, "if Kurosaki were to lose control, if he were to _prove _that he is unsafe by slaughtering his dearest friends in the ravages of insanity…" He shrugs his shoulders and Ichigo shrugs with him. "Then I could hardly be blamed for stopping him, could I?"

Rukia's heart turns over in her chest and she feels Renji shift beside her. Something in the air turns cold with the approaching storm, and her skin prickles. "So you would turn yourself into the hero who slew the beast." This is insane, this is _ludicrous; _she feels like she should be furious or grieved or desperately afraid, but instead she feels only calm, her thoughts focused in utter clarity, crystallizing on Edogawa's words.

The sky is darkening above them, the stormclouds fat with rain, but she can still see the glint of Edogawa's eyes as he cuts them at her. "I did _not _do this in heroics, whether Seireitei recognizes it or not. I did this for their safety!"

She swipes the hand that covers her wound down in an angry slash, and her blood is flung from the end of it to spatter Ichigo's chest. "Then why the secrecy?" she asks heatedly. "Why the subterfuge? If you truly believed yourself to be in the right, why not simply speak out?"

"I _did!" _he shouts. "I cried out the dangers in allowing a half-breed into Soul Society to the captains themselves, and they did not listen—they called him a _hero_ instead, instead of the beast he really is—and then I am told that he is to be named a _captain_—" Edogawa breaks himself off in a sharp movement, and behind his glasses his eyes are glowing with fanaticism.

"Let them have their hero, then," he says, flicking his fingers, and as the skies open and the first drops of rain patter down between them, Ichigo leaps forward, long black blade pointed directly at Rukia's heart.

* * *

Ichigo can't see.

He can't really hear either—it's as if someone is sandwiching his head between two pillows and then taking them away, everything muffled and clear in waves—but he can _feel_ just fine, and that means he can feel the strings, light and iron and unyielding, wrapping around every part of him, sealing his eyes shut, and he can feel the cool glass of the skyscraper windows underneath his pressing fingers, meaning he has fallen into his soul, and he can feel something pressed hard against his back—when he shifts it digs into his kidney, and he recognizes the familiar feeling of an elbow.

His Hollow is bound behind him.

There is a moment of utter panic that he can't quite repress, and then he hears Rukia's voice slide audible mid-word.

"-cate me."

And then Edogawa, fading in and out: "—my subordinates took advantage of an automobile accident to lay the building blocks…kept an eye on him after that…" and Ichigo remembers:

_Strands of dark hair have fallen out of her bun, and the bus driver tucks them behind her ears with steadier fingers as she crouches next to Ichigo's body. "The poor thing," she says with real guilt, and Ichigo chokes when she actually brushes his hair away from the gouges on his forehead._

And:

_The Academy grounds are expansive, lush green lawns dotted with long, narrow buildings—one woman with her hair in a bun has her nose buried so far in a thick stack of yellowed notes that she almost collides with Ichigo._

And:

_He is a breath away from kissing Rukia under the persimmon tree, and then—"Anyway, I found him," Kimiko says, pouting as she turns to address the older woman, dark hair knotted in a bun at the base of her neck, approaching at a more sedate pace. Ichigo frowns. She looks familiar, somehow—_

Even then—even _then—_

He jerks in anger but the threads don't loosen at all. He has to get free, he _has _to—with his body under Edogawa's control, Rukia and Renji are is so much danger—but then he hears Edogawa again, and he falls still to listen. His teacher speaks of the entrance exam and he remembers the test with the globes, when he'd first felt the invasion—and then the Hollow attack, and Ichigo realizes with a surge of fury that Edogawa had been behind that too, endangering dozens of students' lives just to get at _him_—

_Sasaki is panting, and he occasionally swipes at a deep gash in his forehead that freely bleeds into his eyes— something is wrong with Yoshino's sword arm, the blade dangling too loosely from her hand, but the fire in her eyes is visible even at this distance-_

"_Come on!" he hears her shout, tinny and faint and defiant even in the face of Huge Hollow. "Come on, I'll take you all on—"_

Rukia's voice sounds again, harsh and angry and cutting, but it sounds as if she's speaking underwater and he can't understand her—it doesn't matter, though, because he is _so angry—_Ichigo wants to fucking tear the man apart with his bare _hands—_

—and the thread holding his eyelids snaps clean through. Ichigo's eyes fly open.

He is on his knees in his soul; Zangetsu is nowhere to be seen. The green thread has twined across everything he can see, spreading and thickening under his knees like a giant mossy web, trailing over his thighs to pin his wrists to his sides, then up over his chest and out of sight. One of the loose ends of the snapped thread brushes against his mouth and he twitches his head away from it-and his temple hits something hard. His Hollow's head, he realizes, rolling his head to the side until he can see over his shoulder, and then he grows very, very still.

His Hollow's yellow eyes, held open by the green threads twining around its eyelashes, are staring into his, and they are steeped in anguish and rage.

It is worse than he realizes at first, and when he sees the true extent of the invasion, he gags, and he has to swallow twice before he can breathe. The thread does not stop at the surface for the Hollow. It has laced through the Hollow's tear ducts, up its nose, pulling taut at the corners of its mouth, worming in through its ears and under its fingernails and ribbing here and there under its skin, and Ichigo gags again, and again, but his stomach is empty and there is nothing for him to throw up, and all the while the Hollow's eyes stare at him in the horror that he had known before as his own.

"Hollow," he chokes, because he cannot—_cannot _handle this, and the Hollow's scream is silent and reverberating inside him. The window beneath them cracks, and Ichigo wants to scream with his Hollow, wants to rip this place to pieces and build a new sanctuary, one that cannot be invaded, a soul that is his and his only, one that he will not have to share with invading Hollows that are invaded in turn, one unstained by the atrocity that Edogawa has committed here, but he knows that it's an impossible dream—and more than that, he knows that his Hollow is _his _responsibility and _his _to live with and therefore _his _to defeat, not an administrator who counts Aizen as his protégé—but he knows that he cannot break the hold on himself without breaking the hold on the Hollow, and he cannot break the hold _by_ himself either.

And so, Ichigo comes to a decision.

* * *

Edogawa sweeps his arm back into his chest, and the added force to Ichigo's swing sends Rukia sprawling backwards to thud hard against a tree. It knocks the breath half out of her and she sags against the bark, but Shirayuki never falters in front of her. The pouring rain is plastering her hair to her face; a gash through her eyebrow pulses blood into her eyes with every heartbeat but she doesn't dare take the time to wipe it away, because Ichigo is on her again—he sweeps Tensa Zangetsu in towards her heart, but she gets Shirayuki up in time to block his blade so that it only stabs through the fleshy muscle at the base of her neck. Rukia grunts as Ichigo yanks out the blade and withdraws; the blood courses hot over her shoulder, but she has no time to care, and her return slash manages to catch Ichigo through the forearm before he backhands her into the mud again.

Then, in a silence unlike him, Renji is there, one hand under her elbow to help her to her feet, and as she sucks down air, Hihio Zabimaru courses over the ground between to make yet another attempt at catching Ichigo between his massive jaws. Again Ichigo is gone before they can blink, and then Renji lets out a groan of pain—Hihio Zabimaru darts back towards Renji in defense, but Ichigo is gone before Zabimaru even comes close, leaving Renji to clap a hand to his shoulder, where another biting slash has appeared without warning.

Rukia gathers her kidou for a burst of blue fire, Shirayuki's ribbon hanging limp and sodden in front of her—but before she can even begin to focus the power, Ichigo appears out of nowhere and clamps his hand down on her wrist. The kidou explodes in her palm—the pain is _excruciating _and for a second her vision wavers—she blinks hard to clear it but Zangetsu is already high above her and falling, and there is no time to think, no time to react—but then Zabimaru is barreling into Ichigo, and he barely steps into shunpo in time to dodge the attack.

Rukia staggers back, but shock and worry have made her unsteady on her feet, and her heel slips awkwardly in the mud and catches on a rock. A jolt of pain shoots up her leg and she groans as she goes to one knee—she isn't sure if her ankle is sprained or broken, but it is yet another complication in a fight already complicated. She pushes herself to her feet again, feeling Renji approach behind her, and readjusts her grip on Sode no Shirayuki. The blood from her wound slides between her fingers, slicking her grip on her sword and staining wrappings that had been white a rusty red.

Ichigo flickers into sight again, a stone's throw between them and Edogawa, and the despair that has been needling at Rukia stabs straight through her.

They will not win this fight.

She has thought it before, but it is only now that it sinks in. She and Renji are utter wrecks; each has more than a half-dozen serious wounds to their name, though Renji's are worse since he's taken more than one blow meant for her, and there are dozens of more minor scratches scattered over them both. The tendons on Renji's right hand are damaged and he has resorted to wielding his bankai with his left—Hihio Zabimaru is not faring much better, with sections of his bones dropped here and there, Renji no longer able to return them to the body of his sword. Wind gusts through the clearing, sending the rain sideways into Rukia's eyes and making the trees shiver in its wake.

Ichigo doesn't even seem to notice. By all rights, he should be panting in pain as hard as them, but he is not; Rukia doesn't know if it's the Hollow's influence or Edogawa's, but Ichigo is moving as easily as he had at the beginning of the fight. It is not that he is unwounded—Rukia has landed more than one burst of blue fire and she has impaled his right arm twice, once in the bicep and then again through the forearm just now, and Renji has shredded a deep gash across Ichigo's stomach and thigh that ought to have laid him flat on his back—but even though he is dripping blood, Ichigo seems entirely unaffected.

Then Edogawa drops his hands behind Ichigo, and in the space of half a heartbeat, a torrential power begins billowing off him, and Rukia realizes that this is their end. They—and Ichigo—will be consumed whole.

"Damn it all," Renji breathes above her, and she knows he knows. Rukia puts her hand beneath his elbow. She cannot brace him, but it is a charade they both allow, and Renji gives her a smile laden with all the things they've left unsaid.

"Renji," she says, her own unvoiced and unfinished thoughts resonating between the rivulets of rain that run down her cheeks, a song of apology.

He pushes the hair from his eyes in an ungentle movement. "We had a hell of a go, yeah?"

"Yes," she murmurs, and she raises her sword, gathering up the last, tattered scraps of strength that still remain to her. A refrain she's known before is beating steady in her heart: _Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye._

Rain slips into her eyes, and she blinks, hard.

_Goodbye, Ichigo._

* * *

Ichigo breathes, and his Hollow breathes with him.

There is no time for a contract, no time even for words—there is time only for the simple knowledge between the inhabitants of one soul that a partnership birthed to shed the chains that bind them both will be a partnership of _equals_, no longer a master and his horse, and that neither of them will survive without it—there will be no more bindings, no more struggles for dominance, no more subjugation of the other; it will be a soul of three, Ichigo, his Hollow, and Zangetsu, and they will somehow make it work. He'd felt the question—_How_?—coursing through the thread that binds them, and he had answered truthfully—_I don't know_. But the details are minor. He simply knows that it must work, and therefore, it will, and for the moment, at least, he feels through the Hollow's agony an agreement.

And so they are breathing in tandem, and in tandem they are massing their power.

Ichigo feels it first, the loosening of the strings twisted around his wrists, and he looks down just in time to see them shred themselves into nothingness under the pressure bursting out from the pair. Reaching up with freed fingers, he tries to unknot the thread where it twines over his neck, but it is as immovable and unforgiving to his hands as ever, and he can do nothing but wait. And then as he watches, it unravels and falls away, and a split second later he feels the cold acidity that is his Hollow's power draping over his shoulder. _It doesn't work on our own,_ he feels the Hollow's voice in his mind, and he realizes—if the thread is attuned to his power, it is only another's that can break it.

Ichigo must free the Hollow himself and be freed by the Hollow in turn.

He is past nausea at this point—every second wasted endangers Rukia's life, and Renji's life—and so without another second passing, he closes his eyes and wraps himself around the thread that binds his Hollow, and he feeds his power into it with a thundering roar that crackles the air of his soul. He _becomes_ the thread, following it into every crevice it lurks in, burning it out like a flame against magnesium, a brilliant white light that scalds even through his eyelids and leaves no traces of the insidious, invasive thing that has claimed his soul for its own. _Get out! _he hisses furiously, following it around the dead white skin of his Hollow's ankles and legs and then up under its skin, chasing it back through the nerves and veins and capillaries and arteries, swinging through the heart he hadn't known his Hollow had, bursting up through its chest and throat and tongue and brain until his power explodes from his Hollow's eyes, the last of the thread working loose and burning away to ash before him.

The Hollow falls to one white elbow with a shudder, and when Ichigo turns more fully to see it, he realizes that the Hollow has done the same for him, its cold, slick reiatsu still dripping from his skin, and he is free, and the thread, the green sickness that had webbed through his soul—

The thread is _gone._

"Jesus," his Hollow says, and it is the first time he has heard the Hollow's voice—distorted and dry, like fish scales—in more than two years. "Jesus _God_, that fucking hurt."

He is seized with an asinine urge to laugh. "Stop whining. You're free, aren't you?"

The Hollow looks up at him through one gleaming eye, and Ichigo hears the meanings that are layered under his words. "Am I?"

Their eyes meet. This is the moment that will make or break this fragile peace; it weighs the air down between them. He can see that the Hollow expects him to abandon his promise and return the status quo, to take his place atop his horse once more, but Ichigo has no time for a battle here—and besides, he has seen his Hollow bound and chained, helpless in rage and pain, subsumed to the whims of an insane puppetmaster.

Ichigo has already made his decision.

He stands, reaching down, and grasps his Hollow by the forearm to pull it to its feet. There is no kindness in the motion, nor is there an excess of respect—but there is _understanding,_ and an honor in the promise that was made. His Hollow's fingers are cold and damp with sweat and his skin crawls at the contact, but this is the one who freed him all the same, and Ichigo will not let it be bent to another's will.

"Partners, then?" his Hollow grins, gripping Ichigo's forearm.

"Partners," he says, and Ichigo feels the words wrap around his throat.

"Well, then, _partner_," says his Hollow, and it claps its free hand on his back. "Let's get our body back, shall we?"

* * *

Something is happening.

She feels it before she sees it. The reiatsu Ichigo has been exuding has been dark and _wrong, _only tinged with the slivers of the power Rukia knows as his own, building and swelling so quickly and so thick with the stench of Hollow that she cannot breathe in her desperation—and then, suddenly, it stills like the eye of a storm. The rustling of the leaves is silenced, the wind abating—even the rain seems to slow for a moment—

And then she feels a colossal _shift _that seems to shake the earth beneath them.

The air around Ichigo seems to press in on him, green-tinged and dense and twisting as if seeking to regain its control, but something fundamental has _changed_, she can _feel _it—and then Ichigo's power skyrockets, sending a great burst of light stretching towards the stormclouds above them like a beacon—and it is _Ichigo's _power, not the Hollow's, and a splinter of hope takes root in Rukia's heart before she can banish it.

Ichigo still stands there masked, bankai in hand, but he has grown very still. She needs to see Edogawa to know—she wipes blood from her eyes and shifts to the side to look past Ichigo, and the splinter swells—there are vestiges of panic on Edogawa's face.

"He's coming back," she breathes.

Renji shifts his weight. "Don't get excited yet," he cautions her, but she can hear the rasp in his voice that tells her she is not alone in her hope.

Edogawa jerks his hand to the side in a mimicry of the motion he'd made at the beginning of the battle, but Ichigo's hand moves maybe a foot before settling back to his side. Edogawa jerks again, and this time Ichigo's feet move—Rukia can feel the stirrings of shunpo behind his heels and her heart sinks—and then in an abrupt movement that blurs faster than her eyes can track, Ichigo swings his long black blade down and stabs himself in the foot, anchoring himself in place and sending the consolidated energy swirling into dissipation.

And then the great white teeth of his mask crack open, and from the gaping maw behind it, Rukia hears Ichigo's—_Ichigo's!_—voice say, "No."

Edogawa's fingers are working the air furiously, madly, but though his movements still cause the occasional twitch that rolls Ichigo's shoulders, it is rapidly becoming clear that the old man is losing control. So when Ichigo yanks the sword from his foot and takes his first step forward under his own power, jerkily but relentlessly advancing, Rukia allows herself to lower her sword until the rain slides red off its end. Somewhere behind her, she feels Renji pull back his bankai, and the bones of Hihio Zabimaru quietly fade away.

"What—what—" Edogawa sputters, and as Ichigo draws within striking distance, the man clenches both fists, one on top of the other, and a visible shudder ripples up Ichigo's back. "I'll—I'll kill you—I _swear I will_—" He twists his hands in opposite directions and Ichigo _jerks—_Edogawa's face splits in a fanatic smile—but then Ichigo straightens, unharmed, and he steps forward again with all the inexorable force of the ocean, and though Edogawa's hands twist again and again and again, he has lost his power over him, lost everything.

And then Ichigo lets loose a brilliant burst of reiatsu that burns against Rukia's cheeks in the whipping frenzy of it even across the clearing—she cannot imagine standing within arm's reach of it, as Edogawa does, although the sweat mixing with the tears pouring from his eyes to fog his glasses gives her some idea.

"You can't control me anymore," Ichigo says with a certainty that gives her chills, and the last of her doubts burn away.

Eventually it grows bright enough that Rukia has to blink—there is a scream, sudden and piercing, and then it cuts off, and Ichigo's mask shatters into a hundred pieces as his power begins to reel itself in. Rukia can feel it receding, and when she can move forward without her eyes watering, she begins to pick her way across the torn and sodden grounds of the clearing to where the administrator has fallen at Ichigo's feet, slumped in an unconscious heap among the shards of the broken mask. "You damn _idiot," _she hears him snap. "Why the hell didn't you _let go?"_ And then Rukia gets close enough to see why—Edogawa's fingers have all been severed at the first knuckle, almost as if a thread had wrapped around each digit too tightly. Thunder rumbles across them, but it is more distant than before.

"Damn _idiot," _Ichigo repeats angrily under his breath, and then he seems to sense Rukia's approach, and he turns to face her as the last of his reiatsu folds back into himself.

"Rukia," he says in an entirely different voice, and in his brown eyes there is a burning thing that is meant for only her to see, and he takes two unsteady steps toward her.

And then his eyes roll back in his head, and like the inexorable toppling of a tower that has had its last supporting stone pulled away, Ichigo falls.

* * *

Rukia is scrambling over the final stretch of the clearing before she is aware she is moving. Renji shouts something behind her—she ignores him entirely and staggers over a scorched boulder slippery with rain that has unearthed itself during the battle—every injury she has is throbbing now that the adrenaline of facing death is wearing off, except it is _Ichigo's _death now, and she cannot, cannot—not here, not when he has _won—_

Limping over the last divot in the earth, she reaches Ichigo just as her ankle gives out, sending her to her knees in the mud. He has fallen on his back; she wants to reach for something, anything, but she doesn't know what to reach for first—the wound in his stomach is pulsing blood—it mixes with her own as she tries to summon kidou to her hands to heal it, but Rukia is beyond exhaustion at this point, and she cannot even manage the faintest glow around fingernails that are caked with blood, blood that will not wash off even in this pouring rain, and she cannot do _anything for him. _

Rukia bends over his face, her over-fatigued muscles quivering, trying to listen for the faintest breath, but she hears nothing, feels nothing, and she cups his face in her hands, leaving bloody streaks down his temples and across his cheeks and over his lips. "Ichigo. Ichigo, come _back_," she says, as if her order will make it so, and she waits for a minute that stretches across another lifetime, and when nothing, nothing, nothing happens, she drops her head until her lips press against the corner of his mouth.

It is not a kiss, not exactly—it is a thing born of desperation and grief and sorrow, that this place should have stolen the two men she loved—it is a lament, and it is a goodbye, and she closes her eyes against the tears that she cannot check.

And that is when she feels movement against her cheek, and Ichigo turns his head until his lips fully meet hers. Her eyes open—she cannot believe it, her heart has been too damaged by hope today—but Ichigo's eyes are half-open, looking at her, exhausted but alive and awake_,_ and when Rukia feels his hand press against the back of her head in an awkward tenderness, she sobs a laugh against his mouth. She draws back to look at him and he lets his hand drop back to his chest to cover her own—she suspects he is simply too tired to hold it up anymore—and for a moment, she simply revels in the feel of his heartbeat under her fingertips.

"Rukia," Ichigo says, and his eyes crinkle at the corners. "You're dripping on me."

She is. "I don't care," she tells him, and as if to prove her point, she shakes her head, scattering little droplets of rain across them both. Ichigo closes his eyes against the onslaught, relatively defenseless, but she sees his lips twitch in a smile. One drop lands on his eyelid; she wipes it off with the pad of her thumb without thinking, and it leaves a swipe of blood across his skin, dark against flesh already pale. "We need to get to the Fourth," she murmurs, and her shoulder surges in pain as if in assent.

"Taken care of," Renji says suddenly, sinking to the ground beside her with a gasp of pain as he accidentally flexes his damaged wrist. "Got a kidou message out just now. Don't give me that look, you bastard," he adds at Ichigo's skeptical eyebrows raised over still-closed eyes. "It might have been garbled, but they're on their way."

She fumbles for Renji's fingers with her free hand—everything is so slick with mud and blood and rain, but at last she manages to grasp hold, and the three of them wait in the silent aftermath, bruised and bloody and aching and _alive_, and the rain beats down a tempo that washes them clean.

Rukia breathes.


	12. Unison

**AN: **I wrote the first sentence of this fic on February 3rd of this year. At that time, I had absolutely no idea where it was going, nor even how long the fic would be; I knew Ichigo would die, there would be at least one kiss, and there would be at least one big villain, and that was about it. And then I kept writing, and characters started to emerge, and with a good deal of help from my mother, I managed to get some sort of cohesive plot hammered into shape. She had no idea who the characters were, or really _why_ I was writing this thing in the first place, but she listened to me agonize over plot holes and writer's block for ages and provided several very neat ideas that ended up in the final copy. I honestly have no idea if she'll ever even read this fic, but just in case—thanks, Mom! :D

The first draft of Deathsong, which was about 48,000 words, went out to my best friend and beta Jade Sabre (who has some amazing Dragon Age and Neverwinter Nights 2 fics on here, so go read them) at the end of March. I got it back not long after with _pages_ of edits and an edict to add at least two more chapters. (I may have cried. _May _have. Just a little.)

God bless her, though, because she was right. This fic is ten times what it was without her help (and ten thousand words longer, jeez), and I can't thank her enough for suffering through my endless whining about present tense and pacing, and for so calmly nixing my excessive adoration of adverbs. I love you, Jadeykins.

I'd also like to thank y'all, readers, for being so kind to my..."erratic" updates. Your patience has been so appreciated, and your comments have made every frustrated moment worthwhile. Thank you for sticking around to the end.

**Soundtrack for this chapter: **The last one! _Sailing on a Ship _by Phil Wickham. And also for the final time: the link to listen online, is, as always, on my profile.

I hope you enjoy, and again, thank you for reading.

* * *

**Epilogue**

Unison

_(allegro)_

_

* * *

_

Ichigo wakes up in the early hours of the fourth day. He recognizes the narrow beds and the cool, clinical smell in the air, and realizes he is in the infirmary of the Fourth. The room is still dim; the sky is just beginning to lighten around the edges, and the only glow is from the muted yellow gleam of Orihime's Shun Shun Rikka where she bends over another figure across the room. Renji, he realizes from the bright red mop of hair that falls unbound over the pillow.

"Inoue," he croaks, his voice hoarse from disuse, and she glances up in surprise. The glow disappears back into her hands as she smiles; Renji lets out a grumble and rolls away from them both to face the wall, and Orihime makes her way over to an empty chair by his bedside.

"Welcome back!" she says in an enthusiastic whisper that won't wake Renji, and as the room slowly lightens with the sun, she tells him of what happened after the Fourth had arrived.

They'd been a sorry sight, the three of them, sodden and barely mobile—Ichigo had slipped into unconsciousness without the other two even realizing, and the Fourth's shocked emergency relief team had brought them and Edogawa directly to the intensive ward to be treated. There had been something wrong with the wounds to Ichigo's stomach and thigh that prevented Unohana's kidou from working properly—the last remnants of Edogawa's work, she'd thought—so she'd sent for Orihime, who'd had much less trouble. However, their injuries had been far too extensive to heal in a single session, so she'd been stopping by for a few hours each morning to continue working.

"But you know, Kurosaki-kun," Orihime says with pensive eyebrows, "your wounds didn't even open up until they got you here. I've seen a lot of stomach injuries and really, yours should have bled all over the place."

"Zangetsu," Ichigo realizes. _That _was where the old man had been at the end—if Edogawa had been willing to let Ichigo bleed out from his injuries, Zangetsu hadn't, and he'd been the one who had brought him back in the end, the one holding the wounds closed until help could arrive. _Thanks, old man,_ he thinks, and he feels him rumble in response.

_I helped,_ the Hollow says acerbically, startling the hell out of Ichigo before he remembers its freedom and their new and uncertain partnership, but the Hollow's voice is distant and faint in the back of his mind, and Ichigo suspects it is as tired as he is.

_Oh, shut up,_ he thinks, and the Hollow laughs.

"…rosaki-kun?"

He opens his eyes—he hadn't even realized they'd closed—to see Orihime bending over him in concern. _Oops_. "Sorry, Inoue. Just straightening a few things out."

She sits back, relieved. "Oh, of course! Will you say hello to Zangetsu for me?"

"Sure." They fall quiet for a moment, and then a cloud passes over the sun, making Renji's hair the loudest thing in the room, and Ichigo realizes he has not seen Rukia at all. "Hey, Inoue, how is—everybody?"

Orihime smiles, and Ichigo knows she's seen right through him. "They will both be fine," she says, and a wave of relief crashes over him. "Abarai-kun is supposed to be released this afternoon. His wrist is almost all better, _and_ he's only got a few scars. I think they look exciting! Like a pirate."

Ichigo snorts. "He couldn't pull off the eyepatch."

"Perhaps not," she says, giggling. "And Kuchiki-san is doing well, too. Unohana-san says she can go home in two or three days."

"_Good. _That's good," says Ichigo, trying for nonchalance and failing. Orihime smiles again, softer, and Ichigo feels a quiet rush of gratitude. "Thanks, Inoue."

"You're welcome, Kurosaki-kun. Oh, but I should tell you before I forget; you're not supposed to get up anytime soon. You keep opening wounds when you move in your sleep, you know, and then you start bleeding all over the place. It's really messy."

"Messy?"

"Oh, yes. Internal bleeding, external bleeding," she says, ticking them off on her fingers. "Sometimes both! Unohana-san says she's requested that you remain under her care until she personally discharges you." Her eyes brighten with amusement, and she adds in a mock-whisper, "I don't think it's really a request!"

Ichigo winces, and Orihime laughs. "Guess I better not take off, then." He thinks of the last time he'd slipped away from Unohana and its disastrous results—and then a thought occurs to him, sapping his humor and reminding him how he'd come to be there in the first place. "Hey, Inoue—what happened to Edogawa?"

Orihime hesitates, her own smile slipping, and her fingers fidget in her lap. "Unohana-san says they've taken him into custody."

"He survived, then," Ichigo says with a mixture of relief and muted irritation. "Did you fix his hands?"

She looks down at her fingers, and it seems to take a conscious effort on her part to still them. "I…he wouldn't let me. He said he didn't want to be touched by Hollow sympathizers."

Ichigo doesn't know what to say, but before he can stumble through any kind of apology, her head comes up again, and her face is calm and unhurt. "I think," she says, her voice thoughtful, "that something went wrong in his mind when he lost his fingers." Her eyes go distant, as if she is replaying the scene in her head. "He was raving, you know, while the Fourth was working on him. I wanted to help, but every time I got close with the Shun Shun Rikka he became _so _angry. And then they took him off for questioning, and he confessed before they even got started."

Ichigo blinks. "He confessed?"

"Mm? Oh, yes! Twice, actually." Orihime pats his arm. "The captains have already confirmed your innocence. Ukitake-san gave a wonderful speech for you."

He lets his head thump back onto the pillow, bewildered and relieved. Something heavy seems to have lifted off his chest, something he hadn't even realized was there—but before he can dwell too long on the sensation, Orihime stands to go.

"School," she reminds him with a little laugh and with only the slightest hesitation, she squeezes his hand, snatches up a bag he hadn't even noticed, and whisks out the door, and Ichigo, feeling wonderfully light, allows himself to doze off into a proper sleep.

* * *

When he wakes again, the sun slanting through the window tells him it is barely past noon. He hears a rustling noise and looks over to see Renji pulling on his kosode with a wince. Ichigo catches a glimpse of the dressing on his hand and he remembers the torn tendons.

"How's the wrist?" Ichigo asks, and Renji cuts his eyes at him as he tugs his sleeves into place.

"Sure not as shitty as you look."

"Asshole."

"Bastard." Renji stalks across the room and stares down at him for a moment. Ichigo isn't sure what he's looking for, so he waits—and then Renji drops his loosely-folded blanket on Ichigo's face. "I told you not to be a damn martyr."

"Wasn't. You wouldn't let me," Ichigo says, muffled by the blanket until he pulls it down from his face.

Renji slings a small bag of medicines and bandages over his shoulder. "Not for your lack of trying. Don't hang around here too long or I'll tell the captains you're shirking your duties."

"Thanks a lot." He means it to be sarcastic, but Ichigo suddenly thinks of Rukia, and when he speaks again, he is entirely sincere. "And Renji…thanks. For—yeah."

Renji glances at the east wall, and Ichigo knows Rukia must be sleeping on the other side of it. "Could've done a damn sight better."

"Could've done worse," Ichigo reminds him, and Renji silently allows him the point.

There is a short pause before Renji stirs. He thumps a fist on Ichigo's shoulder, making him yelp, and with a shit-eating grin and a wave, he heads for the door. "I'll see you, Ichigo," he calls over his shoulder, and then he rounds the corner out of sight.

* * *

Just as Ichigo is beginning to contemplate shredding his blankets out of boredom, he hears a rustle of cloth in his doorway, and when he rolls his head over, it is Rukia, standing there with serious eyes.

She is almost as swathed in bandages as he is; he can see them on her shoulder where he'd stabbed her clean through, wrapped around the thick padding that pokes out from under the collar of her yukata. There are more bandages on her wrists and hands and fingers; blood has leaked through the wrapping on her thumb, a slice that apparently refuses to heal, and a half-dozen butterfly strips are scattered across her cheeks and forehead. Bruises have blossomed between the bandages on her hands and forearms, and Ichigo can see her leg swollen up past the plaster that coats her ankle even from across the room. His guilt swells up so fast he nearly chokes on it.

She closes the door.

"Hey," he says at length, and Rukia crosses the room with an unsteady gait until she reaches him. "You're still limping."

"I am not yet supposed to be out of bed," she admits.

Ichigo shifts, almost entirely suppressing his grunt of pain, and makes room. "Sit," he says, and she does.

It is a narrow bed, but Rukia is a narrow sort of person, and as she perches easily with her hands braced on each side of her, an easy quiet falls over the room. He feels like he should say something, but his mind is blank, and she seems content to simply sit on the edge of his bed with her heels swinging in the silence. Then Ichigo sees that her thumb has started bleeding again, threatening to stain the blanket, and without thinking he reaches over and draws her hand into his own. They both look down at his thumb as it brushes over hers, but as Ichigo opens his mouth, Rukia cuts him off.

"If you are preparing to apologize again, please close your mouth."

And he does, with a _clack_ and a bewildered look. There is silence in their little space, and then Rukia's hand presses down on his as she turns to face him.

"I think," she says, "that now we are even."

Ichigo wants to snort, but he doesn't—he is the one who owes her, here, and if she refuses his apology, then he will not force it on her. "It's not a competition."

"No," she says thoughtfully as her eyes drop to the thick dressings on his chest, "but I think we are, all the same."

She raises her eyes to his, and he thinks, then, of the circle they seem to keep spinning round, savior and saved, and Ichigo realizes what she means. They have made their choices, both of them, and he will not cheapen what she has chosen to protect.

He knows how it feels to decide to save someone, after all. "Yeah," he says, and she smiles, and Ichigo feels something loosen in his chest.

The room falls still again. Ichigo can hear Fourth division members calling to each other amid the general bustle in the hallways; a bird chirps briefly outside his window, and for several minutes they are both content to watch the sunbeams inch their way across the walls.

And then an entirely ridiculous thought occurs to him and he can't help but voice it. "You know, my feet are a matching set now."

Rukia blinks at him, nonplussed, and Ichigo twitches the blanket up until his bare feet are exposed. His right foot holds the scar Byakuya had given him—Rukia knows that one, of course—but on his left foot there is a new and shiny stripe, a matching twin courtesy of Tensa Zangetsu. Ichigo can see only the back of her head, but he knows the instant she understands what he means because she rolls her eyes so hard her head tips over.

"You are an _idiot_," she says as she faces him, smacking him across the chest—lightly, he notes, but she is smiling, and Ichigo grins.

"Yeah, well. I've heard that before. Get some new material, why don't you, or the next hundred years'll be damn dull."

Rukia's smile widens. He expects a retort but none comes, and then he realizes that she is smiling because there _are_ years ahead for them both, despite _everything_; her eyes are shining, and Ichigo can't wait any longer, so he props himself up on one elbow to reach a hand to her head and pull her down, and she laughs all the way into his kiss.

* * *

There are dust motes glittering golden in the afternoon sunlight shafting through his window, alighting on the dark head of hair that is nested next to his own, and in the last moments of half-waking dreams, just before Ichigo falls asleep, Rukia's soul sings home.


End file.
